http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=263

LILONGWE – At least 3 000 Zimbabweans are said to be using Malawian travel documents to escape scrutiny by immigration officials in the United Kingdom and other Western countries, ZimOnline has learnt.

Malawi's secretary for Home Affairs and Internal Security, Martin Mononga, said last weekend that some 3 000 Zimbabweans had been deported from the UK to Malawi during the past few months.

While Zimbabweans are required to secure visas to visit the UK, such a requirement was not needed for their Malawian counterparts forcing some Zimbabweans to acquire Malawian passports fraudulently.

Zimbabwe has a large Malawian community, most of whom are second or third generation Malawians.

"This citizenship by descent does not extend to the third generation," said Mononga.

Mononga said Blantyre was engaged in discussions with the Zimbabwean authorities to ensure the deportees are given Zimbabwean travel documents.

At least three million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the country’s 12 million population, are living outside the country the majority of them in South Africa and the UK after fleeing economic hardship and political persecution at home.

Millions more are said to be desperate to leave the country, in its seventh year of a bitter economic recession most critics blame on mismanagement by President Robert Mugabe’s government. - ZimOnline

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