Hard Times Fuel Perilous Migration Over Limpopo

Crocodiles and electrified razor wire are not enough to discourage Mashinga Homera from his perilous journeys south to find work.

He spends more than he can afford on bus fare, risks the crocodiles lurking in the wide, shallow Limpopo River, and braves cuts and electrical burns from the fence marking the Zimbabwe-South Africa border.

Life has gotten so bad at home in Zimbabwe that the 25-year-old father of two makes the trip across the border at least once a month to continue working as a bricklayer. Hard times make for hard choices.

“Employment is difficult to find,” he said, interviewed recently after he had crossed into South Africa. “It is a question of whom you know. If you don’t know anyone at that company, then you can’t get employment.”

Zimbabwe’s economy, once among the strongest in southern Africa, is struggling through its worst crisis since independence from Britain in 1980. Unemployment is more than 60%, inflation is more than 70% and an estimated 70% of the country’s 12.5 million people live in poverty.

Prices of Fuel and Basic Commodities Soar

A 70% hike in fuel prices last month has forced higher bus and taxi fares at a time when Zimbabweans face eroding wages. The soaring fuel costs recently led to a two-day national strike called by the country’s main labor federation. Prices of basic commodities such as cooking oil, rice, sugar, soap and toothpaste have risen beyond the reach of many average people.

A controversial government program to seize white-owned farms for black settlement has scared away foreign investors and prompted Western nations to suspend aid.

Thousands of Zimbabweans have joined migrants from other impoverished neighboring countries in entering South Africa, increasing this country’s worries about its own economic problems.

“These people use all the services South Africa has to offer,” said Hennie Meyer, a spokesman for the South African Ministry of Home Affairs. “It is quite a burden on the country.”

Mozambicans constitute the majority of illegal immigrants, Meyer said, but Zimbabweans follow close behind. The Ministry of Home Affairs reported that the number of Zimbabweans deported by South Africa from around the country rose from 14,651 in 1996 to 47,649 in 2000. This year, more than 12,900 have been sent back.

South African police arrested 26,200 illegal immigrants, most of them from Zimbabwe, from March 2000 to March 2001 near South Africa’s northern border.

“It’s impossible to stop the flow,” said J. J. Uys, superintendent of the border police unit that patrols the Beit Bridge, which separates Zimbabwe’s town of Beitbridge from South Africa’s town of Messina, five miles away. “To try and stop somebody from getting hold of food when he’s hungry is not easy.”

Not even a 112-mile razor- and barbed-wire fence, electrified and fitted with alarms, is enough to keep die-hards from crossing the boundary. The voltage is kept at a nonlethal setting, unlike in the late 1980s when the apartheid government used it to prevent infiltrations by guerrillas from the African National Congress, which now controls the South African government under black-majority rule.

Some migrants crawl through holes under the fence or the intermittent iron gates. Others throw a blanket or wood plank across the top of the fence in order to lessen the shock.

Farmers complain that illegal immigrants cut fences intended to keep out wildlife, trample across their land, and sometimes steal crops and equipment. In one recent week, vegetable farmers Flip and Jeanie Nel were forced to repair seven holes in a fence surrounding their 210-acre ranch.

However, officials said the most common route is across the Limpopo River, which rarely rises to eight feet during the wet season and virtually dries out during South Africa’s winter months. At such times, hundreds of footprints dot the sandy riverbed.

The Limpopo is considered no man’s land, so a would-be immigrant cannot be arrested until he is actually standing on South African soil, border patrol officers said. Many of those spotted in water just stand there and wait for the border guard to go away.

Illegal immigrants who are caught are usually deported within 24 hours. Many deportees simply turn right around and try again.

“We have experienced that sometimes they are back in Messina before the deportation truck is,” said Uys, the police superintendent, adding that his men often arrest the same person twice in one day. “It happens so often it’s not funny anymore.”

South African soldiers and police are not allowed to manhandle the would-be immigrants, and they can use their weapons only to shoot into the air, or in self-defense.

“If they find you crossing, they arrest you, but they don’t beat you,” said Homera, the bricklayer. “The moment I get taken back to Zimbabwe, I come back again. I keep coming until I succeed.”

A lack of manpower and equipment has further hampered the military border patrol units, Defense Ministry officials said. Many soldiers and police have become demoralized by the constant arrest and release of illegal migrants. Some have resorted to taking bribes from the immigrants, border officials acknowledged.

Many Zimbabweans have relatives living just across the border in South Africa, a legacy of the man-made colonial boundaries in Africa that separated thousands of families.

Homera’s uncle, also an illegal immigrant, lives close to the Beit Bridge and is always ready to provide food and shelter for his nephew before he continues his journey south.

Criminals have also begun to capitalize on the traffic. Maj. Mornay De Ridder, an officer with the military border patrol unit, said that a group working in Zimbabwe and known as the “Guma Guma” charges Zimbabweans exorbitant fees to take them to the South African border. From there, the migrants must go it alone, or depend on the goodwill of South African sympathizers.

Minibuses line up at a rank near the Messina border post. The drivers warn passengers of upcoming roadblocks in order to give illegals time to get off, dive into the nearby brush, and rejoin the bus farther along the road.

Although the fine for knowingly transporting illegal immigrants is about $630, Homera said few drivers demand extra money.

“Most of the drivers understand that we are all human beings and we are all running for life,” said Homera, whose job fetches the equivalent of about $50 a month. It is a seemingly paltry sum, but not so insignificant once converted into Zimbabwean dollars, whose value has dived in recent months.

“People are running from hunger,” said Livingston Chirembwa, 29, a Zimbabwean taxi driver who insists that the passengers he ferries across the Beit Bridge are primarily traders with official permits.

The plight of Zimbabwean laborers is due to get harder, even for those with official South African work permits. In the past, such workers were allowed to find jobs on farms in northern South Africa on the basis of a bilateral agreement. This arrangement will end on Oct. 15, when permit holders will also be required to return home.

“We’ve come to the realization that there are in fact South Africans available who would gladly do those jobs,” said Meyer, the Ministry of Home Affairs spokesman.

Law Called Devastating for Legal Laborers

Area farmers said the impact of the new law will be devastating for legitimate Zimbabwean laborers.

“They are really devoted. They need the job,” said Flip Nel, who has 43 legal Zimbabwean laborers on his farm. “Many of them went to school. They are not illiterate. But in Zimbabwe, they have nothing.”

That’s why so many are willing to risk life and limb to cross the border.

Lufuno Mbedzi, 33, had been sneaking into South Africa from his home near Beitbridge at least once a year since 1996. On one recent day he was caught for the first time, having crawled into the country under a razor-wire fence.

Crammed into a small police van with 27 other deportees, who had found work near Johannesburg for $8 a day, he vowed to find a way to return. “Because I am suffering, I think I will try to come again,” Mbedzi said.

Archibald Mauta, 18, also scheduled for deportation, echoed Mbedzi’s sentiments. He had traveled hundreds of miles from a Zimbabwean town near the border with Mozambique, dodged elephants and other wildlife in the bush, waddled painstakingly across the Limpopo in ragged clothes and shoes. He had no intention of going back. Even the one night he spent in jail in Messina seemed like luxury compared with the hardships at home.

“The things we ate in the cell in South Africa, some people can’t even [afford to] eat in Zimbabwe,” he said.