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Illegals flee to SA
19/03/2007 16:51 - (SA)
Clare Byrne
Musina - They say when Zimbabwe sneezes, the whole region gets a cold. While observers this week were talking up the imminence of regime change in Harare, Zimbabwe, the country continued to haemorrhage economic migrants to neighbouring countries.
The respected International Crisis Group think thank speculated earlier this week that divisions with Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF over the 83-year-old leader's bid to extend his term for a further two years represented "a realistic chance" for change.
"After years of political deadlock and continued economic and humanitarian decline, a realistic chance has at last begun to appear in the past few months to resolve the Zimbabwean crisis," said the report.
For the thousands of Zimbabweans who flee their country's economic meltdown each week, change cannot come quickly enough.
On a hot Sunday morning near the Beit Bridge crossing with South Africa (SA) a young man wriggles under the second of three razor-wire border fences.
The approach of our car sends him crawling backwards on his elbows into Zimbabwe. From there the 27-year-old, who did not wish to be named and is from the eastern city of Masvingo, tells us this is his second time in five days to attempt the crossing. He was arrested and deported the first time.
He has no food no money and is hoping to get a lift in a truck to Johannesburg, where his brother lives. "There are no jobs back home," he said, using an expletive to describe the state of industry in Zimbabwe.
When an army jeep pulls up transporting some just-nabbed illegals - two youths and two women, one cradling a small baby - he melts back into the bush.
The riches-to-rags transformation of the one-time breadbasket of Africa has spawned a mass exodus of desperate migrants.
Zambia also witnessing influx
With inflation in Zimbabwe running at a record 1 600%, four out of five without a job and basic necessities such as bread and fuel in short supply, even women with small children are risking life and limb to quit the country.
Although Zambia is also witnessing an influx most head for SA, the regional powerhouse and home to an estimated three million Zimbabweans, or one-quarter of Zimbabwe's population.
Some cross the border legally on a visit visa and then overstay their permit to look for work. Those unable to obtain a passport because of a shortage of government money to process a backlog of 300 000 applications try their hand at border jumping.
The journey into SA is extremely hazardous.
"They are running away from wild animals, they are running away from the amagumaguma (thieves), they are running away from soldiers and farmers," said a Zimbabwean woman who shelters illegals in the border town of Musina.
People in the area tell of seeing migrants crossing the Limpopo River on the border being eaten by crocodiles. Dierk Lempertz, who runs a game reserve outside Musina, found a Zimbabwean woman naked, "nearly dead" on his land. She had been robbed and raped, allegedly by amagumaguma.
"We gave her food and water and when she was strong again, we said she has to leave the farm," says Dierk.
Brothers Stephen, 23, and Joseph, 26, from a village in central Zimbabwe showed reporters ugly welts on their arms and legs where they were beaten by thieves.
"They took off all the clothes, the money. If you have nice shoes, nice watches they take these," they say.
Widespread food shortages
Despite the hazards of the journey and the costs incurred - at least a month's salary for a lift to the border and to pay a human smuggler to be guided across - most illegals say life is better in SA.
As farm labourers in Musina, Stephen and Joseph earn R400 a month, a fraction of what locals earn, but around four times the salary of an office worker in Zimbabwe and "enough to buy a cow" back home.
With a little money in SA they are also sure of being able to buy food. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's disastrous land reform programme, which saw white-owned farms left uncultivated after being handed to cronies in the government and military, combined with caps on food prices and drought have sparked widespread food shortages.
Illegals at risk of deportation stock up on basics such as cooking oil before returning home.
As the meltdown of Zimbabwe beings to be felt throughout southern Africa, the "quiet diplomacy" of South African President Thabo Mbeki vis-a-vis his liberation-era ally Mugabe is being increasingly called into question.
"We should not pretend that all is well in Zimbabwe," Zambian foreign affairs minister Mundia Sikatana said this week, urging the Southern Africa Development Community to mediate between Mugabe and the European Union to end Zimbabwe's isolation.
Zambia's outburst coincided with a report by the International Crisis Group suggested that powerful factions within Mugabe's party opposed his bid to remain in power until 2010 instead of 2008. These factions might force the authoritarian leader to retire, the report found.
"Mugabe has killed our country," a tracker on a game reserve in Musina said repeatedly. "If Mugabe retires, things will come better," said Joseph.
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