South Africa's major platinum mines have closed to allow workers to attend memorials for the 44 people killed last week in a wildcat strike at a Lonmin facility.
Lonmin and nearby Impala Platinum closed for the day on Thursday as workers prepared for memorials, including the main national service to be held at Marikana near the site where police gunned down 34 miners a week ago in the deadliest day of protest since apartheid.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), blamed for fomenting violence at platinum mines since January, held its own service early on Thursday at the Implats mine.
"It's not a separate memorial service. We are still going to the Lonmin memorial service.
It was just because of the number of people who wanted to attend and it's a distance between Implats and Lonmin," AMCU secretary Jeff Mphahlele told the Sapa news agency.
The service at Lonmin will be the focal point during a day of mourning that will stretch across the country, as many of the victims were migrant workers whose bodies have already returned to their home villages.
Religious leaders are conducting the memorials, with services also expected in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Mthatha - a city in the rural Eastern Cape province home to many of the miners.
As a huge public address system was mounted near the hill where the Lonmin workers died, a small crowd had already gathered around five widows who were crying on the dusty ground. Labour disputes in South Africa's platinum belt have turned increasingly violent this year.
Three people died at the Implats mine during a wildcat strike that ended in February.
Ten were killed at Lonmin in the days after an illegal strike began on August 10, prompting police to intervene and leading to the gunning down of 34 miners last week.
The violence has been blamed on union rivalries, as an aggressive AMCU seeks to gain membership from the dominant National Union of Mineworker, one of the country's most powerful unions and a major ally of the ruling African National Congress.
President Jacob Zuma, who first visited the mine the day after last Thursday's bloodshed, visited the region again to meet with Lonmin mineworkers.
On his first trip, he visited the wounded in hospital and announced a commission of inquiry to investigate the killings, but strikers complained he had not met with them directly.
"I could only meet police leadership on the day, I could not come here as it was late but I managed to go to hospital where some of the injured workers related what happened to me," Zuma told the miners.
The killing sparked national outrage with images caught on camera and broadcast around the world, exposing the heavy-handedness of the country's police.
"Those saying our government gave orders to kill are misinformed because it will never be our policy to harm those we represent," Zuma told the workers who had gathered near the scene of the massacre.
"That will never happen," he said. The London-listed Lonmin had threatened to dismiss the striking workers who had ignored orders to return to work and stage daily protests.
The workers are demanding a tripling of their wages. They say they earn 4000 rand ($A465) a month, though the company says their total compensation is around 11,000 rand a month.
"I hear that you are saying you won't leave here until you get the money you want.
I will also send a message to the employer that you demand 12,500 rand," Zuma said. "I haven't met the employer so I don't know his view on this."
