Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) youth chairman Frank Motsaathebe said the cost of feeding and transporting hundreds of Zimbabwean back to their country every month was draining the fiscus and the world body must assist.
The situation in Zimbabwe is a humanitarian issue therefore the international community especially UN must assist Botswana because, in financial terms, the country cannot afford to act single handedly in the repatriation exercises, Motsaathebe was quoted by Botswana media as saying.
It was not immediately clear whether the call by Motsaathebe for the UN to help fund repatriation of Zimbabwe immigrants had the backing of President Ian Khama's government.
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Zimbabwe's long running crisis has spawned a huge refugee problem in the region with an estimated three million Zimbabweans now living in neighbouring countries – the majority in more prosperous Botswana and South Africa – after fleeing home because of political violence and worsening economic hardships.
Botswana Vice President Mompati Merafhe last November said his country was looking after more than 1 000 Zimbabwean refugees at a cost of 1.2 million pula (about US$150 00) per month. urging a quick solution to Zimbabwe's political impasse.
According to Botswana government statistics, Gaborone has since 2005 repatriated over 175 000 illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe while spending 62 million pula building facilities to hold illegal immigrants, feed and transport them back home.
Calls by Botswana for fresh internationally supervised elections in Zimbabwe to end the country's crisis have drew angry responses from Harare which has accused Gaborone of unwarranted interference.
President Robert Mugabe's government subsequently accused Botswana of training youths from opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party to destabilise Zimbabwe.
Gaborone dismissed the charge and invited regional SADC grouping's Organ on Politics, Defence and Security as well as the Zimbabwean government to undertake a fact-finding mission to Botswana to probe the allegations. The regional body is yet to publish its findings.
Relations between Zimbabwe and Botswana have long been strained with the Gaborone authorities accusing illegal Zimbabwean immigrants of stoking crime in their country while Mugabe's government accuses Botswana of ill-treating Zimbabweans.
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Meanwhile Motsaathebe said the youth wing supports Khama's calls for a quick solution to Zimbabwe's crisis and criticised SADC for its failure to protect Zimbabweans against what he described as tyrannical regime in Harare.
"We support the government’s position on the Zimbabwe issue, and condemn SADC’s inefficiency in protecting the people of Zimbabwe from the tyrannical regime, he said.
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