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Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau

South Africa has started deporting 273 Zimbabweans arrested for violating its immigration laws.

The rapid deportation is driven by the need to de-congest prisons and immigrants detention centres in the midst of Southern Africa’s worst Covid-19 infection rate

A total of 169 arrived in Beitbridge yesterday in police vans while an additional 104 are expected to arrive in Zimbabwe today.

Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to South Africa, Mr David Hamadziripi said yesterday that all those being deported were from holding centres in Limpopo Province.

“The majority of them had been arrested for violation of South Africa’s immigration laws,” said the ambassador.

The latest development brings to 800 the total number of Zimbabweans deported from South Africa since the beginning of April.

The first group of 527 arrived in the country in a convoy of 11 buses in May and these were mostly from Gauteng province.

Among the immigrants were 129 released prisoners. Upon arrival in the country the immigrants are screened and profiled at the National Social Security Hotel, which is being used as a quarantine and isolation centre before being transferred to quarantine centres nearer to their homes.

Before the lockdown, South Africa was deporting around 60 people daily and most of those intercepted immigrants would have overstayed or travelled without valid travel documents.

Under the current South African regulations, Zimbabweans are allowed a stay of not more than 90 days per calendar year and those who are not formally employed are finding it difficult to conduct their businesses in under three months.

The 90 days free visa is awarded to the traveller at the ports of entry at the discretion of immigration officers.

While others chose to overstay in the hope of not being stopped and questioned, some are making use of fake immigration stamps to illegally extend their stay in South Africa.