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Revelations regarding the scale of deportations of Zimbabweans in SA
Zimbabwe Exiles Forum
July 24, 2006

The Zimbabwe Exiles Forum continues to note with mounting concern the ever -deteriorating social economic and political situation in Zimbabwe. Startling revelations by the South African Department of Home Affairs that about 51 000 Zimbabweans have been deported between January and June this year not only signals a grave and potentially serious threat to human rights of the deportees, but also to regional peace and security. The staggering humanitarian crisis that the continued meltdown in Zimbabwe has spawned cannot be over-emphasised.

ZEF further notes with deep disquiet the fact that women and children have also been seriously affected, with some reporting rape inside Zimbabwe, as well as on the tortuous and sometimes fatal journey into not only South Africa, but also Botswana and neighbouring countries.

Whilst we sympathise with the South African government over its escalating immigration control costs, we observe that its efforts to control the tide through deportations instead of stemming the root of the Zimbabwean crisis have misfired. It is dismaying that Pretoria folds its hands and sometimes seems to abet the unrelenting political, social and economic decay in Zimbabwe on one hand and on the other crying foul about the overwhelming refuge crisis that it is facing. This is especially worrying in circumstances where scores of children being dumped at Beit-Bridge have become defenseless victims of this catastrophe. The instantenous return of these victims and children to Zimbabwe where the social security structures and in particular psychological trauma counseling facilities have all collapsed is tantamount to the traumatisation of a whole generation of the future politics and economics of a country that was once a shining example on the African Continent.

ZEF implores the South African government to stop acting in complicity with Mugabe and adopt a pro-humanitarian approach to the Zimbabwean crisis.

Gabriel Shumba
Executive Director

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