South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is facing calls to order a national inquiry into a police operation that was meant to combat illegal mining but ended up leaving 87 miners to die underground as authorities attempted to force them to surrender during a monthslong standoff.

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

South African authorities lifted the bodies of 60 people from an abandoned gold mine, police have said. Hundreds more people could be underground following a monthslong effort to force them out of the mine.