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One million fleeing Zimbabwe for South Africa
Sebastien Berger, The Daily Telegraph (UK)
September 26, 2007

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/26/wzim126.xml

More than a million Zimbabweans will have fled into South Africa by the end of the year, according to a new report. The survey for Zimbabwe's Mass Public Opinion Institute is the first scientific examination of emigrants forced out by Robert Mugabe's political and economic misrule. "People are leaving for survival," said Daniel Makina, a professor at the University of South Africa, who carried out the study. As they arrive in Musina, the northernmost town in South Africa and a nondescript sprawl of buildings at the end of the road to Johannesburg, immigrants are greeted by a giant yellow poster. "We know why you're in South Africa," it reads. "Life in Zimbabwe is murder these days." It implores emigrants to return to vote "for freedom" at the next elections. Nearby, the Sibanda cousins, illegal arrivals from Bulawayo with nothing but the clothes on their backs, rested after their journey. In the dry season Kipling's "great, grey-green, greasy" Limpopo, the river frontier, is more of a narrow stream and in many places holes have been cut in the triple border fence. Nonetheless, the journey is not easy.

The cousins paid a guide 80 rand each, about £6 but more than a month's wages for many Zimbabweans. "Now we don't have money to buy anything like food," said Bernard, 23, a sculptor with a wife and son to support. It took the pair three days to walk from Beitbridge, the official border post, across the frontier and to Musina. They did not eat, slept in the bush and had to run the gauntlet of police and robbers, both of whom, he said, would "hit you thoroughly"; the former if you tried to escape and the latter to demand money and clothing. But he added: "It's better to come like this because there in Zimbabwe it's bad. There's no jobs. There's no money." Leo, also 23, a trained hairdresser, said: "We're sitting here because we are hungry and too tired. "We are starving in Zimbabwe. There's nothing to do. We are just looking for a job, for piecework. Then we can buy bread and eat." Their thin build and threadbare clothes were evidence of their plight. Like migrants the world over, though, Zimbabweans in South Africa face accusations that they are criminals and deprive locals of employment. The South African home affairs minister has suggested legalising economic migrants, but for now Zimbabweans found without papers face immediate deportation - at a rate of 17,000 a month so far this year. Prof Makina said the government's attitude was determined by its foreign policy. "There seems to be a reluctance to accept that there is a political crisis in Zimbabwe," he said.

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