More than 2 million Zimbabweans have flooded into South Africa over the past nine years to escape the repression and torture of Robert Mugabe's vilified regime, but only 11 have been granted political asylum, The Guardian has discovered.
And in the first nine months of last year the South African authorities arrested and deported 41,000 Zimbabweans and sent them back across the border. The total was more than all those repatriated between 1994 and 2002.
The startling figures reflect the growing humanitarian crisis facing Zimbabwean immigrants, and South Africa's dilemma over how to deal with them. Many Zimbabweans claim South Africa's reluctance to give them legal status has been compounded by the brutal treatment often meted out to those who try to make a legitimate claim.
One man described how staff at a refugee centre demand bribes from queuing Zimbabweans, and routinely whip and hit those seeking asylum.
When The Guardian put these allegations to the director general of South Africa's home affairs department, Barry Gilder, he promised an investigation. "There is no policy that I am aware of to discourage Zimbabweans from getting asylum here," said Gilder.
The influx of millions of Zimbabweans has overwhelmed South Africa, which has a population of 45 million, and created a substantial underclass of illegal immigrants who live a precarious existence -- with no legal status they are not entitled to help from the South African government.
The South African government claims that only 1,471 people have formally applied for political asylum since 1994; it also conceded that only 11 had been granted refugee status.
However, Zimbabwean immigrants insist the reason that the numbers are so low is that immigration officials make it extremely difficult to apply.
One immigrant, Tafadzwa Chimombe (not his real name, to protect his family in Zimbabwe), said: "I've been to the refugee office six times but still not succeeded in getting the form needed to apply for asylum. They say they will deal with Zimbabweans once a week, on Tuesdays, but when we go there the guards hit people and use whips on us and order us away. It makes us ashamed to be Zimbabweans here in South Africa."
The South African government was actively preventing Zimbabweans from getting political asylum, Chimombe said, because the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, supported the Mugabe regime. "But we gave South Africans refuge in Zimbabwe during apartheid -- why won't they help us now?"
Chimombe has scars from the electric shock torture and beatings he received in Zimbabwe. A former captain in the Zimbabwe army, he was accused of sympathizing with the opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, and subjected to days of torture at army barracks in Harare. "My lips, tongue and testicles were swollen from the electric shocks, I couldn't even walk," the 32-year-old said.
Once he had recovered from the torture, he fled to South Africa. "I am just trying to get papers so I am legal here. I cannot go back to Zimbabwe." Although he has professional qualifications, he cannot get work without a permit; he was offered the application form if he paid a bribe of 500 rand (US$76).
Several other Zimbabwean refugees described how they were tortured in Zimbabwe and then faced difficulties in South Africa. The treatment of Zimbabweans at the South African government's centre for political refugees, in the Braamfontein area of Johannesburg, was recently highlighted in a television documentary broadcast on South Africa's independent e-tv. A security guard was shown shouting: "Get away you Zimbabweans, we don't want you here." The guard then flailed at the refugees with a rawhide sjambok, a short whip that symbolised the brutal ways of apartheid.
"They beat us and whip us," said Pascal Moyo. "It is terrible to be a refugee here in South Africa but it is even worse to go back. We must scramble and live by our wits."
To survive, Moyo collects bottles from rubbish cans and sells them to recycling centers.
According to Elinor Sisulu, the South African representative of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, the burgeoning numbers of Zimbabweans from across the border demonstrates that their nation's problems are having a negative impact on the entire southern African region.
"These people are not being treated like refugees, they are being treated like criminals. They call them economic refugees," she said. "At this point, I think everyone should be treated like a political refugee."
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