There has been an influx of undocumented Zimbabweans arriving in the South African border town of Musina since President Emmerson Mnangagwa unleashed the security forces to stop anti-corruption protestors from taking into the neighbouring country’s streets, South African police have said.
The police said on Wednesday that the illegal movement of the undocumented foreigners, locally known as “border jumpers”, was getting worse around the Beitbridge border entry between Zimbabwe and this country’s northern province of Limpopo.
While the area has a newly-installed US$2 million security fence and is patrolled by both police and troops, this has not deterred the Zimbabweans from breaching the boundary, the police added.
According to the police, the influx comes amid a crackdown by Harare on dissent following a planned but failed demonstration in that country which the Zimbabwe security brutally stopped in its tracks.
The result was that hundreds of people were crossing illegally into South Africa daily by walking through the bush before reappearing on the main national highway to catch transport to the border town of Musina to buy groceries, the police said.
The police quoted one unnamed Zimbabwean national as saying that his breaching the border fence was necessitated by desperation since the crackdown in his country.
“We are hungry,” the police quoted him as saying.
NM/jn/APA