Nightmare for Zimbabweans at SA's Lindela Centre

On June 1 Michael Mdladla was arrested by police in Benoni, east of Johannesburg. The 19-year-old undocumented Zimbabwean, who worked as a gardener, was sent to Lindela Repatriation Centre in the West Rand a week later, to await deportation.

"We were reduced to animals," Mdladla told The Zimbabwean this week. "We were beaten by security guards, starved and told we had no right to complain, otherwise we would not make it out of there alive. I would give my all not to go back there again," he added.

"The guards always called us makwerekwere (a derisive name given to foreigners). When you challenged that, you would be beaten up. Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and Malawians were their main target because they did not have money to pay bribes. Nigerians always paid and they were safe. We were beaten with batons, fists and even kicked for nothing at all. Any attempt to demand your rights always invited more beatings," he said.
An old man

Mdladla said he and his fellow Zimbabweans were criticised for "running to South Africa to cause trouble" instead of fighting for their rights in their countries of birth.

"They told us we were cowards that could not defeat an old man (Robert Mugabe), yet we demanded rights in South Africa," he added.

"We were also starved. Most of the time, we would be given porridge in the morning and the next meal would be a plate of pap with cabbage in the evening. We had no-one to complain to because everyone around was a local and to them, a foreigner was an animal, worse if you were a Zimbabwean," he said.

Two months into detention, he was allowed to call his relatives from an official's phone and arrange for his "release". His uncle, Ndumiso Ndlovu, made arrangements to pay by the end of that month, about two weeks from the first call.
Communication cut

"I was desperate to have the boy released, so when the official called me almost every day to seek progress on how far I had gone in trying to raise the money, I had hope. Michael also called me regularly from that official's phone," said Ndlovu.

"At the end of the month, I paid and the official told me my nephew would be released back to Johannesburg in a few days, but weeks and months passed and the official immediately changed his number and cut all communication with me."

Michael, an orphan, stayed for five months at Lindela, until his 76-year-old maternal grandmother came from Bulawayo to intervene. "It pained me to hear that my grandson had spent five months in detention at a place where some people came back ill, so I had to rush. I could not hold my tears when I saw him. He was no longer the healthy boy I knew," said the grandmother, Lungile Ndlovu.
Pay more money

"He was so thin and whenever he spoke of what he was going through, he would end up crying. I had to take him out. The officials said he was kept for so long because he was foolish and had failed to tell them where he came from," she said.

Mdladla denied that he had failed to speak. "I told them that I came from Zimbabwe, but they kept saying I should pay more money to be released. They did not allow me to talk to my uncle again, saying I should talk to another relative, yet I had no-one else," he added.

Mdladla was only deported last week, after the intervention of officials from the Zimbabwe Consulate, on his grandmother's request. He is not the only foreigner with such painful experiences of Lindela. Many other detainees have recounted a similar ordeal during their often illegal detention.
Gross violations

Research by the South African Human Rights Commission recently unearthed gross violations of the detainees' human rights - especially access to health.

The Commission investigated Lindela following complaints from Medecins Sans Frontiers, Section 27, Lawyers for Human Rights and People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty, who raised concerns about access to, and quality of, health for detainees.

In August, Judge Moroa Tsoka of the South Gauteng High Court ruled Lindela's detention practices were unlawful, unconstitutional and in contravention of the Immigration Act, after at least 39 foreigners had been subjected to inhumane treatment.

He ordered Lindela to allow the SAHRC access to the facility on a regular basis, and that regular reports on the number and status of detainees be issued.