South African police  ordered by a court to halt their confrontation with unlicensed miners.

A judge in South Africa has ordered police to break up a confrontation with illegal miners and give emergency personnel access to a pit where hundreds of people are reportedly locked up. According to official broadcaster SABC, the High Court in Pretoria, South Africa, issued an interim order stating that no one should obstruct the departure of any underground miners in the Stilfontein mine.

An attorney who assisted in bringing the issue to court, Yasmin Omar, told SABC that the decision was merely an interim injunction and that a full hearing will be held the following week.

The decision comes after police cut off food and water supplies, raising worries about the safety of the illegal miners, who may spend months below.

In a statement released on Friday, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) stated it was looking into the police’s decision to deny the miners access to necessary supplies.According to officials, at least one decomposing body has been found inside the mine.

The blockade of the Stilfontein mine is part of an escalating clampdown by the government and police on the activity of illegal miners in the country.

“We’ve got about 6,000 abandoned mines in the country,” David Van Wyk, a lead researcher at Johannesburg-based Benchmarks Foundation, told CNN, adding that when large-scale companies and multinational corporations fail to properly close mines, they are left vulnerable to illegal mining.

Some claim that the nation’s high unemployment and poverty rates, which push locals into hazardous and unstable jobs, are the main cause of the issue. While applauding the court order, the South African Police Service stated that the decision did not bar the detention of healthy illegal miners.

“All those who resurface will continue to be assessed by emergency medical personnel on site, as has been the case,” they said Saturday in a Facebook post. “Those that are in a good health will be processed and detained. Those that require further medical care will be taken to hospital under police guard,” they added.

The police force reiterated their call for all illegal miners to resurface and stated that operations would continue at all disused and abandoned mining holes in the Stilfontein region. By Saturday afternoon, three illegal miners had returned, authorities said. They also stated that a South African national was detained on Saturday in Kanana in a residence that serves as a smelter, a facility that purifies gold.