Boys and girls as young as 8 crawl out of rubbish-strewn pipes and filthy flood drains. Some come from human nests, carefully built within the thick foliage of wild hedges. Others appear from the bottom of dank alleyways, and still more from the crevices of abandoned buildings.
Night brings some respite for Zimbabwe's lost generation, thousands of children who escaped hunger, poverty and disease in their homeland in search of a better life in South Africa, Instead they find themselves unwanted and hunted. For a few hours they can beg and scavenge for food largely out of sight of the police who arrest and deport them during the day. They rummage through overflowing bins, licking the inside of cans and plastic yoghurt pots and gnawing on jettisoned takeaways.
Once they are on the streets their characters start to change. They meet others and start sniffing glue, prostituting themselves, stealing, Pastor Forster Kwangwari, of Concerned Zimbabwe, an organisation trying to take the children off the streets, said. The sheer numbers overwhelm us the crisis has stolen our country's future and is creating a generation of feral kids.
Near by, from dimly lit doorways young girls gesture confidently at passing motorists who know sex with minors is cheap – 30p for unprotected intercourse, half that if a condom is worn. HIV infection rates are among the highest in the world here but the girls are seemingly indifferent to the risks.
Sophia Mbazana, 14, has a girl's face but is old beyond her years. She came to Musina with her 17-year-old sister, No Matter, three months ago. Their parents died in quick succession two years ago and their elder sister could no longer provide for them as well as her own children a common story.
We were hungry and came here to find food, we make money from begging, Sophia said, as she sniffed glue from a plastic bottle. With darting eyes, she tells how she was arrested but ran away from the police when they took her to the border for deportation. Now she is planning to move on to Johannesburg or Pretoria. I am just waiting to get some money for transport, she explains.
Aid workers say that that is when she will most likely vanish. Many of the girls just disappear. They are here one day and then gone the next. They are more easily absorbed than the boys perhaps as domestics, sex slaves or trafficked, Sara Hjalmarson, of the medical charity Mdecins sans Frontires (Doctors without Borders), said. We don't know but we fear the worst.
It is a testimony to the severity of life in Zimbabwe that, despite the hardships and abuse they suffer, few of the children or adults who cross the Limpopo River marking the border want to go back. Zimbabwe's health, education and agriculture sectors have all collapsed and hunger stalks the land.
Zimbabweans are not welcome though. South Africa refuses to grant them refugee status, largely for political reasons. Consequently, for those who make the journey during which they are often attacked by gangs of thugs on both sides of the border life is almost as hard, and much more dangerous, than back home.
With neither asylum nor refugee status, they are illegal immigrants subject to arrest and deportation, which leads to further harassment and discrimination. Children, many orphaned by Aids, suffer most as families are separated and relatives scattered across the region.
South Africa, blinded by the status of Robert Mugabe as a liberation hero to the mess over the border, considers Zimbabwean asylum seekers voluntary economic migrants on the lookout for a cushy life. It argues that if they make life too comfortable many more will come. Last week the authorities closed a squatter camp in Musina, saying that it had become an unhygienic eyesore, but provided no alternative. More than 4,000 camp-dwellers took to the bush rather than risk being arrested and deported.
The camp's closure infuriated international and local agencies. We are shocked with this decision . . . MSF once again calls upon the Government of South Africa to stop deportations and provide immediate, adequate humanitarian assistance for Zimbabweans seeking refuge in the country, Rachel Cohen, the charity's head of mission in South Africa, said. Aid agencies such as Save the Children Fund, which tried to provide alternatives, were also quickly told that it was against local by-laws to erect structures such as tents that would give the appearance of a camp. If they failed to comply with regulations they would have licences to operate in the area revoked.
Local government officials say that they are overwhelmed by the number of migrants and they must give priority to their own people. Musina is a small town with a small budget and, without help from the federal Government, cannot cope with such a huge influx. That help is unlikely to be forthcoming. The country faces an election in April and, with xenophobia still running high after anti-foreigner riots last year in which dozens were killed, there are few votes in being soft on Zimbabweans.
Officially there are about one million Zimbabweans taking refuge in the country but the unofficial figure is believed to be three times higher. About 35,000 Zimbabwean asylum seekers were processed by immigration officials in Musina Between July and December 2008. Only 40 were granted asylum but few, if any, returned to Zimbabwe.
Refugee status
4 million approximate number of Zimbabweans who have left the country, although exact figures are impossible to ascertain
3 million in South Africa
700,000 believed to be living in Britain
165,000 Zimbabweans deported from South Africa in 2007
40 per cent probable Aids rate in refugee camps
202,000 capacity of the refugee camps on the borders of Zimbabwe
4,000 deaths in Zimbabwe from the latest cholera outbreak, with 89,000 cases
Sources: International Organisation for Migration, UNHCR
The Times (UK)
Post published in: News