Deportees shun IOM assistance

assistance offered by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) as they opt to illegally cross back into the neighbouring country.
In an interview yesterday, the IOM head of programmes, Ms Natalia Perez said out of the 6 500 deportees received at the organisation’s reception and support centre in Beitbridge, only 2 700 accepted the offer to be assisted with transport to travel to their respective homes.
“We have so far handled at least 6 500 returnees from South Africa since the deportation exercise resumed in October and out of those only 2 700 deportees accepted the offer to be assisted with transport to proceed to their homes. The majority of them opted to illegally cross back to SA.
“We have also noted that on being rounded up, particularly on farms around Limpopo Province, some of the deportees are not given access to medication and therefore as IOM we have engaged partners who are assisting us,” she said.
Ms Perez said her organisation has contracted several local bus companies to ferry the returnees to their homes.
However, most of the deportees opt to cross back using undesignated entry points along the crocodile-infested Limpopo River despite the dangers of being attacked by the deadly reptiles. Border jumpers also risk being mugged and raped by organised syndicates of armed robbers operating in bushy areas along the border.
IOM has since 2005 been providing deportees from South Africa and Botswana with food, medication, overnight accommodation, transport to travel to their homes as well as information on safe migration procedures.
The organisation opened reception and support centres in Beitbridge and Plumtree to cater for deportees from the two neighbouring countries.
The Beitbridge reception and support centre has a capacity to handle 1 500 deportees at any given time.
Ms Perez said most of the migrants deported through Beitbridge Border Post were from Chipinge, Bulawayo, Chiredzi and Masvingo.
“We normally get high numbers of migrants from Chipinge, Bulawayo, Chiredzi and Masvingo,” she said.
South Africa has so far deported a total of 6 500 Zimbabweans through Beitbridge Border Post since it resumed the deportation exercise on 7 October. The majority of the deportees are males.
The first batch of 261 deportees was brought in from the Lindela detention centre outside Johannesburg in four buses under the escort of South African Home Affairs officials. The largest number of deportees was recorded on 8 November when 589 undocumented Zimbabweans were brought back home.
The deportations marked the end of an amnesty for illegal Zimbabwean immigrants staying in South Africa that ran from 5 May 2009 to 31 July this year.
More than 275 000 applications from Zimbabweans wishing to regularise their stay in the neighbouring country have been processed while several others were turned down and some are pending.