'Only white people living better lives in SA,' says Mugabe

President Robert Mugabe has reportedly said that only white people are "living better lives" in South Africa while black Africans are "still very low".

Mugabe said this during a media briefing at the end of a one day extraordinary Southern African Development Committee (SADC) summit in Harare on Wednesday.

Mugabe encourage citizens to take up opportunities at home and stop flocking to South Africa.

"They are people who voluntarily go to South Africa..... They think South Africa is the heaven... Yes, it's more highly developed. True. But go there and you will see that the Africans in the country are still very low. It's the whites who are living better lives. More advanced," Mugabe was quoted as saying.

Mugabe made reference to people living in Soweto, saying their lives were "very elementary", adding that immigrants made the "the situation of the Africans more worse".