Three month old toddler deported from South Africa without mom or dad

A THREE-month-old baby was reportedly deported to Zimbabwe after her mother fled from South African police who were rounding up deportees.

Now the Zimbabwean deportees and NGOs at the border around Beitbridge are now accusing the South African police of sending minor children back to Zimbabwe without their parents or guardians.

The infant is being sheltered at the Save the Children repatriation centre for children in Beitbridge, where staff have named her Vanessa. She was abandoned by her mother along the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa just before Christmas.

Muhoni said they had had several cases of children, including a group of toddlers, who were deported to Zimbabwe after being intercepted by the police while in transit to towns in South Africa.

Several deportees told of how young children were mixed with older people during deportation, exposing them to possible abuse.

"The situation is so sad. Many children are abandoned when their parents are intercepted by the SA police as they try to cross into South Africa illegally," said Alec Muhoni, a senior child protection officer at Save the Children.

"The SA police are not supposed to deport children but they are not following the regulations. They just deport them and mix them with adults during deportation."

Almost 7000 people have been deported from South Africa to Zimbabwe since October last year, according to the Zimbabwean Department of Immigration.

SA police denied the allegations.

Said a spokesman, Colonel Vish Naidoo: "We don't deport people. We only arrest them and give them to the Immigration Department. It is not our mandate to deport people. If there are police officers deporting people across to Zimbabwe they are acting outside the law."

A spokesman for the South African Department of Home Affairs, Ronnie Mamoepa, also dismissed allegations that local authorities were deporting children.