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SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE: Persistence pays off for border jumpers looking for better life
IRIN News
January 11, 2006

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51053

BEITBRIDGE - Crossing the border from Zimbabwe to South Africa is a hazardous journey, but rocketing numbers of people are braving rapids, crocodiles and watchful border guards as they flee the economic and political crisis in their homeland in search of a better life.

The container truck grinds down the gears as it gets into position in the heavy vehicles queue. A pregnant woman climbs out of the passenger door and after some hurried instructions from the bearded driver approaches the security guard at Zimbabwe's Beitbridge border post, the gateway to neighbouring South Africa.

After passing him a folded bundle of Zimbabwean notes, the woman takes her stamped gate pass and goes past the queues to the final exit, where a baby-faced soldier and a sombre-looking police support unit trooper wave the woman through without checking the gate pass or demanding a passport.

The same procedure takes place at the first South African security checkpoint. The woman crosses the immigration offices courtyard past the queues of incoming travellers and, having paid another security guard manning the exit R10 [about US $1.80], she ignores a group of police officers and proceeds to the waiting point, when the truck soon picks her up.

Her two children, concealed under the heavy tarpaulin covering the load, have also entered South Africa.

This is one of the many ways in which Zimbabweans desperate to jump the border beat ever-tightening South African security.

While this woman found getting through the gate relatively easy on the morning of 28 December 2005, many more were feigning sleep as they lay on the lawn of a Beitbridge service station popularly known as the 'last stop', waiting for the sun to set and a better future in an unknown land famous for the high number of guns on the street.

The Last Stop
Newly arrived migrants from all over Zimbabwe meet with the latest deportees at this service station to wait for nightfall, when they slip across the Limpopo and breach the razor-sharp, three-tiered security fence on the South African side.

When IRIN arrived at the 'last stop', over 300 prospective border-jumpers - almost half them repeat offenders - were basking in the scorching temperature. Most said leaving Zimbabwe was the only way out of the worsening socio-economic crisis, but the high cost of applying for a visa to South Africa made most of them resort to crossing illegally.

"To apply for a South African visa one needs one thousand Rand [about $165] in cash. Most of us have never worked anywhere and do not have relatives in South Africa - even those with relatives and friends working there cannot get the money because they are poorly paid," commented one.

"With the state of the economy worsening daily in Zimbabwe, I find braving the crocodiles of the Limpopo and taking chances with the South African security services a better option. If I succeed, I go straight to Johannesburg [South Africa's biggest commercial city]; if I get caught and deported, I come back here, take a rest and make several other attempts," said Siduduzile Ndlovu, 27, a mother of two.

While she hoped for a better future, possibly employed as a domestic worker, her companion, Debra Masomere, pregnant and travelling with her child and young brother, had few expectations. They had left Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, on 26 December and crossed the Limpopo twice, only to be nabbed and sent back. She weighed the grim reality of the crocodiles, being swept away by the flooded Limpopo and dodging the omnipresent soldiers, who do not take bribes anymore.

"I do not know what to expect in Johannesburg. I have never been there and I do not have any relatives elsewhere in South Africa. The problems at home are forcing me to leave this hard way, and I can only hope for a new life in South Africa. I hope to register these children and the unborn one for social grants," she explained.

"Some friends told me I could get them new South African birth certificates if I get money enough to bribe officials at the Department of Home Affairs, but first I have to cross the river and make my way to Musina [in South Africa's Limpopo province] on foot. I will only try to plan for Johannesburg as soon as I confirm that I am on my way there by reaching Polokwane [about halfway to Johannesburg]," said Masomere.

Better life for the Kids
Some of the women said they were going to join husbands and relatives in Johannesburg. Most said they hoped to return to Zimbabwe when the political and economic situation had improved, but were smuggling their children into South Africa in time for the opening of schools because of high fees and dropping educational standards at home.

"At this point Zimbabwe is not a place to let children grow up in - it is not normal," said a father of two boys, aged 2 and 4, who refused to be named.

"My hope is to get my children South African citizenship, and place them in schools there. Lowered as the educational standards here are, we all realise that education has become expensive enough to be accessible only to the privileged few. I crossed the Limpopo yesterday with the boys, but got arrested and deported. I will go back again today because South Africa still offers a lot of hope."

Police officers at Beitbridge Police Station said it was alarming to see that most of the over 50,000 illegal migrants deported from South Africa between December 2005 and the first week of January 2006 were women and children.

"Women have become the majority in deliveries to the station. We handle nearly 400 border-jumpers every day. Although we are supposed to fine them Zim $25,000 [US 25 cents] for breaching a section of the Immigration Act [by entering another country without appropriate travel documents], most of them are so poor they do not have money. So we just screen them for wanted criminals and let them go, although we know that they wait for another chance to cross again, and they do," said a senior immigration detective with Zimbabwe's Criminal Investigation Department.

He said most of them usually succeeded in crossing at the second or third attempt, because the lure of South Africa encouraged them to take the same risks repeatedly. IRIN also learnt from the police that 'border guides' had set up lucrative businesses helping people to cross the frontier and making it impossible for security agencies to stop the hordes.

"The so-called border guides are local boys who claim to know every point where one can cross without the triple risk of being swept away, eaten by crocodiles or spotted by an army patrol while crossing the river," said the detective.

"They then take these people to openings in the border fences. They rip the fences apart to make many cleverly concealed gaps. By studying the South African daily security patrol pattern from high points on the Zimbabwean side, they get to know which openings to use at what time. This way, many border jumpers slip through," he explained.

Some of the 'border guides' confirmed that they charged each illegal migrant R50 [about $8] to lead them across the river to a pre-arranged pick-up point for transport, but did not see this as exorbitant compared to the price transport owners charged.

"We accept that these people have not worked and may not have any money, but if they can get R1,000 [$165] to pay the fee for a journey to Johannesburg without papers, they surely can pay R50 [$8] to cross a flooded river," said a guide who called himself Jeff-Jeff.

"You should not forget the great risk we take in leading these people through the security patrols and armed guards in private, wildlife-infested farms at night. The fee is much more reasonable when rated against the benefits of a new life in Johannesburg."

There is little doubt the exodus will increase in 2006, and deportees will be sent home in even larger numbers.

One response is a reception and support centre being built by the International Organisation for Migration in Beitbridge. When opened in February, it will provide stranded deportees with food, clothing and bus fares to enable them to return to their homes. Whether they remain there is another matter.

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