A South African court ordered police to end a standoff with illegal miners to allow emergency workers to gain access to a mine shaft where several hundred are believed to remain after the government cut off vital supplies.

The police have cut off food and water to miners for weeks in a bid to force them out of an abandoned mine. Human rights advocates and community leaders call the tactics inhumane.

Officials are blocking access to basic supplies for hundreds of people underground in a northwest mine shaft as part of a crackdown on miners.