Fear rises in SA as Zim deportations loom

The current moratorium on forced returns of Zimbabweans will be lifted at the end of July, marking the end of the chaotic documentation endeavor launched last year. That process, which gave Zim nationals a chance to apply for legal documentation to remain in South Africa legally, has been marred by chaos and it’s understood that tens of thousands of people are still waiting for their documents.

Braam Hanekom from the refugee rights group PASSOP told SW Radio Africa on Tuesday that there is a sense of urgency among the Zimbabwean community, with the July 31st deadline looming. He explained how “time does seem to be running out,” adding that thousands of people still don’t know their fate.

“We will be meeting with Home Affairs and seeing if there is any way that the process can be extended anymore, but I think the leniency by South Africa in extending this process before is really running thin,” Hanekom said.

There are warnings that South African officials are considering embarking on a ‘clean-up’ exercise targeting illegal immigrants, when the moratorium is lifted. According to a report by South African based human rights lawyer Nicole Whittaker, this ‘clean-up’ operation might result in documented migrants, including asylum seekers, being unlawfully arrested, detained and possibly even deported from South Africa.

“A pressing concern is that once the moratorium on the deportation of Zimbabweans ends on July 31 2011, the South African authorities will round up suspected ‘illegal foreigners’ en masse and detain them for purposes of deportation, without assessing individually who has a right to be in South Africa and who does not,” said Whittaker in her report, titled: ‘Zimbabweans in South Africa fear mass deportation: The aftermath of the Zimbabwean Documentation Process.’

Whittaker said this was due to the flaws in the documentation process, explaining how the exercise “was plagued by difficulties such as excluding many Zimbabweans from the process and making them consequently vulnerable to deportation.”

Bishop Paul Verryn from the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg meanwhile warned that some South African politicians were using the removal of all foreigners from the country as a “dangerous political tool.” He explained that xenophobic tensions were still high as a result of such politicking, warning that “we are sitting on a ticking time bomb.” Verryn said that official promises to remove foreigners from South Africa were adding fuel for more xenophobic attacks.

In recent days at least two Zimbabwean men have been killed in unrelated, violent attacks by South Africans. One man in Polokwane was reportedly stoned to death by a mob of South Africans who also vandalised the homes of other foreigners in the area. At the same time disturbing footage of a mob beating a young Zimbabwean man to death in the Diepsloot informal settlement has also been released on the internet. The man’s shack was also burned to the ground.

Verryn explained that the number of Zimbabweans entering South Africa was increasing, because of fears of pre-election violence at the hands of ZANU PF back home. He agreed that the influx of the Zim nationals was an indictment of the severity of the Zimbabwean crisis, calling South Africa’s decision to resume deportations at this point “traumatic and dangerous.”