South African police have launched a manhunt for a Lesotho gang member believed to have controlled operations at an illegal gold mine where 78 bodies were recovered last week during a police siege, from which he escaped.

The prospectors were trapped underground for months as police, on orders from South Africa’s government, attempted to starve them out.

The South African government has launched a rescue operation at an abandoned gold mine in the country’s North West province, where at least 109 men have died, a group representing the miners said, after local authorities cut off vital supplies in a dramatic bid to crack down on the country’s illegal mining trade.