Zimbabwe authorities to take over a week to clear deportees from SA

  By Tichaona Sibanda
   29 December 2005

It’s reported that authorities in Harare will take over a week to clear the 160 people who were deported from South Africa aboard a chartered flight on Wednesday.

Our correspondent Simon Muchemwa told us from Harare on Thursday that the authorities were checking whether all those returned were not ‘first and foremost’ fugitives from the country who had fled to South Africa.

‘The problem is most of those deported on Wednesday do not have travel documents, and we are told among them there are several people who are not Zimbabweans, but were found using Zimbabwe travel documents,’ said Muchemwa.

The vetting process will also be delayed as a result of the festive break, because most officials are still on holiday.

‘This is a bureaucratic delay because the majority of those people are women and children. Surely they can’t be classified as fugitives. They are people who had gone to South Africa to try and earn an honest living,’ he said.