Botswana deports 13 800 Zimbabweans

MORE than 30,000 Zimbabweans have been deported from neighbouring South Africa and Botswana this year, officials have said. A total of 14,450 Zimbabweans were deported from South Africa for violating that country's immigration laws between January and the first two weeks of September, while 13,847 were deported from Botswana.

Officials at the Plumtree border post yesterday said they had received 13,847 illegal Zimbabwean immigrants from Botswana in the first eight months of this year, a 45 percent increase from the 9,500 deportees who were handled over the same period last year.

Addressing legislators on the state of affairs at the Plumtree Border Post yesterday, Assistant Regional Immigration Officer in charge of Plumtree Border Post, Nqobile Ncube, said a number of Zimbabweans insisted on travelling to Botswana without documentation.

"The increase in repatriations can be due to increased inland operations by Botswana authorities as we've a number of Zimbabweans travelling to seek employment in the neighbouring country without relevant documents," said Ncube

He said during the whole of 2014, there had been 14,754 deportees that passed through the Plumtree Border Post.

Ncube said there was a need for legislators to consider decentralising passport application services by allowing district registry offices to accept applications and become possible collection points.

He said the border had recently experienced cases of foreign nationals who were trying to access the neighbouring country through illegal exit points after being denied asylum status.

He said the government should declare Plumtree Border Post a protected area, to contain criminal activities.

"We've a number of travellers attempting to enter or exit the country through illegal crossing points along the border which stretches for about 82 kilometres. There are also high cases of human smuggling perpetrated by omalayitsha," said Ncube.

The officer commanding Bulilima-Mangwe District, Chief Superintendent Gideon Zulu, said smuggling activities were high at the border but the police were making great strides in apprehending the culprits.

He said a total of 64 kilogrammes of gold worth millions of dollars had been intercepted at the border while being smuggled into Botswana.

Plumtree Border Post Zimra Station Manager, Leonard Samembere, said there were a lot of cases of smuggling of fuel and electrical gadgets into the country as well as other restricted goods.

He said the smuggling was being done along the border line which made it difficult for culprits to be apprehended.

The chairperson of the parliamentary thematic committee on peace and security, Damian Mumvuri, who is also the Senator of Rushinga- Mt Darwin constituency, said the legislators had embarked on a tour of Beitbridge and Plumtree Border Posts in order to assess the performance of the two facilities.

He said the visit was prompted by complaints from travellers and rampant smuggling and border jumping activities.