adminThe assistant regional manager-in-charge of Beitbridge Border Post, Mr Charles Gwede, said they were handling an average of 80 border jumpers daily.
“We continue to receive deportees coming into the country through Beitbridge Border Post everyday. South Africa resumed the deportations on 7 October and as of Tuesday this week, we had recorded a total of 5 737 Zimbabweans who have so far been brought back home since the exercise started,” he said.
The first batch of 261 deportees was brought in from Johannesburg in four buses under the escort of South African Home Affairs officials on 7 October.
The largest number of deportations was recorded during the same month when 367 Zimbabweans were rounded up from Limpopo and Gauteng provinces.
The record high figure of Zimbabweans deported from South Africa was on 13 February in 2007 when 1 600 people were brought in a convoy of 16 buses.
On arrival in Beitbridge, the deportees are taken to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reception and Support Centre where they are offered overnight accommodation, medication, food and transport to proceed to their respective homes.
However, a majority of them turn down any form of assistance from the IOM and those who opt to go home using their own means are released with most of them crossing back to South Africa illegally through undesignated entry points along the crocodile-infested Limpopo River despite the dangers of being attacked by the deadly reptiles or robbers operating in bushy areas.
The IOM reception centre has a capacity to accommodate 600 people at any given time.
Mr Gwede warned people against irregular migration as they risked their lives and prosecution.
Although the deportations are carried out everyday, the number increases to more than 300 mostly on Wednesdays and Thursdays when those from Lindela Detention Centre in Johannesburg would have been cleared for new arrivals.
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.
Online Reporter