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The Marikana Platinum Mine,near Rustenberg in South Africa, was the scene of a wildcat strike on and leading up to 16 August 2012, by miners working at the British-based Lonmin company mine. A number of violent incidents between the South African Police Service, Lonmin security, the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and strikers themselves, culminated in an event in which approximately 47 people were killed. Most of the dead were striking mineworkers, a further 78 of whom were injured in the fracas. This event was one of a spate of wildcat strikes that raged across the South African mining sector. The violence is reported to have started on 11 August, when NUM leaders fired on their own members who were on strike. In that incident, two of the strikers were killed,followed by the deaths, in the next few days. of a further eight strikers, police and security personnel, The Marikana Massacre , as the killings of 16 August were dubbed by the press, was reported to be the most deadly use of violence by the South African security forces against its own civilians, since the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, in which 69 protesting inhabitants of a segregated township in South Africa were killed by police, and since the demise of apartheid in South Africa. The Marikana Massacre occurred on the 25th anniversary of a national miners' strike in the country. Naked protesting Lonmin mineworkers queued to be sprinkled with muti in rituals purported to make them invincible. A witchdoctor administered the traditional medicine in the hope that police intervention would not harm the protestors. An Enquiry, led by a retired judge is currently investigating the incident, in which it appears that many of the victims were shot in the back, and most were shot at a considerable distance from the police lines.