The Democratic Alliance, the second largest party in the ruling coalition, called for an independent investigation.
At least 78 bodies have been recovered from a defunct gold mine in South Africa, where police have cut off food and water supplies for months in what unions say is a "horrible" crackdown on desperate people trying to eke out a living.
Police said on Wednesday they had concluded the rescue operation and believed they had rescued all survivors and retrieved all bodies from the abandoned mine near Steelfontein, southwest of Johannesburg.
The surprise announcement comes a day after the police minister said the rescue operation could continue until at least next week.
Police said 78 bodies had been found and more than 240 survivors rescued from the gold mine two kilometers (1.24 miles) below the surface since rescue operations began on Monday.
Police said rescuers would conduct a final sweep of the mine on Thursday to ensure there were no survivors or bodies underground.
In August, police blocked the delivery of food and water from defunct mines, forcing people to the surface where they could be arrested. In December, a court ruled that volunteers could deliver necessary aid to miners. The rescue operation was finally agreed upon last week.
"Our mandate is to fight crime and that's what we've been doing," South African Police national spokesperson Atlunda Matt told reporters at the scene.
"By providing food, water and essentials to these illegal miners, the police will keep them entertained and allow crime to flourish," she said.
But civil rights groups say the government's weeks-long refusal to launch a rescue mission actually resulted in miners dying of starvation or dehydration.
The Confederation of South African Trade Unions said in a statement: "These miners, many of whom are undocumented and desperate workers from Mozambique and other southern African countries, have been ignored in one of the most horrific acts of willful state negligence in recent history. One." Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the Democratic Alliance, the second largest party in the ruling coalition, said the situation had "seriously gotten out of control" and called for an independent investigation.
Police said 1,576 miners had escaped on their own between August and the start of the rescue operation. All were arrested and 121 of them were deported, they said.
“There is growing concern about how the police are handling this situation,” human rights lawyer Jessica Lawrence, who was at the scene, told Al Jazeera.
"Had the country listened to the community sooner...many lives could have been avoided," she said.
The South African government says the ongoing siege of Steelfontein is necessary to crack down on illegal mining, which mining minister Gwede Mantashe has called a "war on the economy".
He estimated that the illegal precious metals trade lost sales, taxes and royalties worth R60 billion ($3.17 billion) last year.
"This is a criminal activity. This is mainly an attack on our economy by foreigners," Mantashe said in a speech at the scene on Tuesday.