Online Reporter
THE present wave of xenophobia in parts of South Africa, so far mainly in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal although other areas have not been spared, has seen Zimbabweans living in these areas fleeing their homes and seeking protection from their embassy and its consulates.
By Friday last week, 1 240 had been formally evacuated from South Africa and brought in buses hired by the embassy to Beitbridge, where they had their immediate needs met and then helped to continue on their way to their families and communities.
But far larger numbers are expected to flee South Africa as the anti-migrant vigilante groups become more daring. These groups have issued a June 30 deadline, which the South African Government has condemned as an illegal move without any official support.
But despite the growing efforts by the South African authorities and security services to curb the xenophobic vigilantes operating outside the law, the anti-migrant groups are still active in the streets and threatening ever more non-South Africans living in the country, some legally and some illegally. The stories they tell on their return are harrowing.
Zimbabwe has set up official systems to pull out and assist those citizens who want to return and as that illegal June 30 deadline approaches far more effort is likely to be needed.
Making the position far worse for those dislocated by the vigilantes is that they have had to abandon most of their possessions, seeing safety for themselves and their children as their prime concern.
So when they arrive at Beitbridge they are literally living out of a suitcase or a bag without much more than the clothes on their back and a blanket.
Besides needing immediate help on arrival, most will also need longer-term support to establish themselves back in Zimbabwe. There are likely to be limits over just what the best-intentioned extended families in Zimbabwe are able to do.
The International Organisation for Migration and the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society are already active, especially at the Government-run Reception and Support Centre at Beitbridge.
They are helping Government meet the immediate needs of the repatriated Zimbabweans, mainly with food, temporary shelter, hygiene and the like. But the humanitarian effort will require more hands on deck.
The Department of Civil Protection, which is equipped for coping with disasters, natural and man-made, is taking the lead role and the Emergency Fund, prudently set up in the national budget, is being tapped for funding.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is also highly active, having to deal with everything from Zimbabweans camping outside the consulates to organising buses to move them home.
Now a general call for more collective action has been issued by the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works. The private sector, churches, humanitarian organisations, development partners and others have been asked to step up with their support.
And we must all respond. We have done this before, usually when there has been a serious natural disaster, such as a cyclone. This time the disaster is man-made. But for those affected and forced to flee their homes there is not much difference between a cyclone and a vigilante group. There is still that need to survive, to protect their children.
We also need to remember that the main targets of the vigilantes, or at least those they can reach, are Zimbabweans already living on the economic edge in South Africa: the vendors, day labourers, people selling cheap food on the streets, and owners of small tuckshops.
The highly-qualified members of the Zimbabwean diaspora in South Africa with decent qualifications, good jobs or lucrative businesses, official residence papers and living among middle-class South Africans, are far more distant from street violence. As always, it is the poor who suffer.
The Government has already accepted its absolute responsibility for our citizens, and will no doubt do a lot more, everything from ensuring they continue to be protected, at least in places of refuge, and can be bussed without danger to the border, to ensuring they are treated as Zimbabwean human beings on their return home.
It would be unwise to assume things will settle down in South Africa; if anything the vigilantes are getting more active and seem well organised. So we are likely to see a lot more of our fellow citizens leaving South Africa.
There were already some voluntary returns, since Zimbabwean economic growth rates are so much higher than those in South Africa, but these who see greener grass back home are being joined by those being forced out.
We have all been asked to help, and we all need to respond. These are our fellow country people and we need to ensure they are made welcome and helped to join the growing and successful efforts to build our country.
While helping a fellow human being in dire straits is noble and expected in human endeavours, we should note how these problems have come to being. A person illegally resident in any country world over is a law breaker and becomes a social misfit. He or she should be viewed in that light. Zimbabweans affected by the situation in South Africa do not deserve the sympathy that proper refugees do. Most, if not all, created the problems for themselves. They were not forced to jump borders. In fact the majority of them abused the falsely created view that Zimbabwe was not a safe place to live in and her economy had collapsed. A lot of Zimbabweans went into South Africa illegally while claiming that their lives were at risk, which was a blatant lie. Some still hold on to that lie. No one, absolutely no one was forced to jump the border. Why should we, who remained behind and did the right thing be asked to bail out law breakers? Didn’t they know they were breaking laws and putting the country into disrepute? Those who have been caught up in this conflict deserve no sympathy at all. They made their beds, they must lie on them.