Zimbabweans arrested in Johannesburg crackdown released

By Tichaona Sibanda

24 July 2006

Some Zimbabweans arrested by the police in Johannesburg, South Africa last week during anti-crime raids have been released from custody. They were picked up during the launch of an intensified anti-crime campaign and most of those arrested were from the crime-infested Hillbrow area. At least 500 Zimbabweans were picked up in midnight raids in the first week of an operation that is expected to be rolled out over the next six months. Authorities in South Africa said the raids were part of a national crime fighting strategy.

This follows an upsurge of violent crime in that country that has seen police and criminals clash in open gun battles. There was also growing concern among South Africans that foreign immigrants were allegedly behind the serious spate of crimes.

Thuso Khumalo, a Johannesburg based Zimbabwean journalist, said the majority of those released were asylum seekers waiting for their cases to be heard by officials from the ministry of Home Affairs.

‘Immigration officials have been vetting everyone at the Lindela holding camp and those with proper documentation were being released and those without are being deported,’ Khumalo said.

Meanwhile South Africa’s department of Home Affairs says it is battling to contain a tide of Zimbabwean immigrants pouring across the border fleeing their home country because of economic turmoil.

Department officials told the local Press that they had deported 51 000 illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe between January and June this year but more immigrants continued flooding through the porous border between the region’s economic powerhouse and its troubled northern neighbour. 

Zimonline reported that the department which said it had taken a ‘financial knock’ from the influx of immigrants said it was on average  deporting 265 Zimbabweans every day while the cost of detaining illegal immigrants had shot up from R22 per day five years ago to R75 today. Pretoria spent a total of R218 million on immigration control last year - more than double the amount the department spent in 2004. Last year 97 433 Zimbabweans were deported from South Africa while 72 112 were removed from the country in 2004. 

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