South Africa will be deporting illegal Zimbabwean immigrants every fortnight to reduce the number of foreigners detained at its holding centres, it was reported on Monday.
On Friday, Pretoria deported 800 Zimbabweans through the Beitbridge border post. Another 800 were deported at the beginning of June.
Zimbabwe’s consular general to South Africa Batiraishe Mukonoweshuro said the neighbouring country had undertaken not to hold Zimbabweans caught without proper travel documents at the Lindela transit camp for more than three months.
“We have agreed in principle with the department of Home affairs that no immigrants will be kept at Lindela for three months,” Mr Mukonoweshuro told the state owned Herald newspaper.
“They have promised to deport men only by train after every two weeks.”
He said the centre had a capacity to hold 4,000 foreigners. Zimbabwe has one of the largest number of illegal immigrants in South Africa.
“At the moment we are left with around 694 Zimbabweans at Lindela including women and 175 blocked ex-convicts who are still being vetted for various crimes by the police,” Mr Mukonoweshuro said.
The number of Zimbabweans in South Africa is not because most of them are not documented.
Work programme
A South African programme that offered Zimbabweans special work and residence permits saw over 250,000 being registered.
However, analysts believe the majority of the immigrants did not register fearing that they would be deported.
The border between Zimbabwe and South Africa is porous with most of the deportees quickly finding their way back.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has tried to discourage people from skipping the border saying South Africa is not the “heaven” most people are made to believe it is.
Africa Review
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