By Odwa Mkentane
The Zimbabwean Civic Movement has urged the South African government to process and repatriate the 200 Zimbabweans who have been detained for two months in Robertson, rather than continuing to hold them.
The group was arrested in June and July during a crackdown on undocumented migrants. Among those detained is a couple whose three-year-old child has been left in the care of others.
Speaking to VOC, Zimbabwean Civic Movement member Lovemore Maporisa says some of the detainees paid fines to be released while awaiting deportation.
“The situation is hectic and it is terrible. During the operation, they had a massive arrest of undocumented immigrants, and most of our fellow Zimbabweans were arrested. We do believe that the process normally goes [as follows]: if you are arrested, you pay a fine. Then, after that, you face deportation, or you can be released on the grounds that you are represented by a lawyer. But right now, we are having a situation whereby, when they were arrested, most of them did pay the fine, but the Department of Immigration could not deport them, and until now, they are still behind bars,” said Maporisa.
Maporisa added that those who were deported lost their cellphones and money while they were being detained in Robertson.
“The situation is getting worse. For those few people who were deported, we even have affidavits for their belongings. When we went to claim their cellphones and money from the police station, they told us that they didn’t know about those things. But we have affidavits that they signed when they were arrested. We are not saying that we are demanding the South African department to allow illegal immigrants to run around South Africa, but we are crying [out] for them to at least consider human rights,” he said.
Anti-illegal immigration group March and March has again given undocumented migrants in South Africa until September 30 to leave the country.
On Tuesday, the group criticised President Cyril Ramaphosa for apologising to Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders over recent anti-illegal immigration activities in the country.
On Saturday, Ramaphosa told SADC heads of state that he was ashamed of recent attacks on foreign nationals living in the country.
VOC
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