As Lindela Repatriation Centre in South Africa teems with Malawian illegal immigrants ahead of their deportation back home, Malawi News has established that some of these people deliberately court trouble by travelling down South without proper requirements and documents such as passports.
And we can report that their desperation to try their fortunes in South Africa has created what seems to be a lucrative business for human smugglers who take them on a trip so dangerous and uncertain in outcome, while they pocket huge sums of money in return.
In some cases, the money the travellers pay these smugglers is far more than what they would spend in processing a passport, pay for bus fare and travel comfortably.
Our investigation has also established that while private trucks are popular with this smuggling business, some staff in international buses are also facilitating such illegal travel.
Both Malawian and South African authorities reported last week that up to 1,154 Malawian illegal immigrants are being held at Lindela, awaiting deportation.
Our investigation took us to Wenela Bus Depot in Blantyre where many Malawians board buses to South Africa.
Here, we found a dozen agents, most of them staff working in the buses, looking for clients to assist.
The immigration requirement is that a traveller must have in their passport a legitimate bank stamp of R3, 000.
We discovered that the agents produce such stamps even when one does not have the required R3, 000.
The normal bus fare, as of December 2015, was K26, 000 to Johannesburg.
‘Passengers with issues’ (such as inadequate cash in passport or without passport at all) are not immediately told the exact amount they will pay for them to be transported to South Africa.
“We will take you there; you will just pay a small token of appreciation,” said one agent to this reporter who had posed as a traveller.
Before reaching Mwanza border, those ‘passengers with issues’ are demanded to pay K1, 000 each.
The money, the smugglers told us, is used “to buy the way across the border”.
In one of the buses that we attempted to travel by in December 2015, out of 70 passengers, only three did not need ‘assistance’.
At each border stop along the route, the assisted passengers are asked to pay R50
which the smugglers claim is for police and immigration clearance, one illegal traveller said.
The normal capacity of the buses is 58 passengers but the smugglers can load as much as 70 passengers in these buses.
About five kilometres from Beitbridge on the Zimbabwe side at the border with South Africa, the illegal travellers are taken off the buses and bundled into minibuses or cars, the agents told us.
Here, these passengers are also asked to pay a fare to take them to Johannesburg. The fare varies according to the transporter but the minimum is R400, we learnt.
“I have been in South Africa for three years now; and I go home every year and I’m used to travelling like this. I used the minibuses once. It’s a gamble as they use unchartered routes.
“They may just decide to stop in the middle of nowhere and demand more money from passengers threatening to drop them there if they don’t pay,” said Edward from Salima, who works as an assistant in a shop in Johannesburg.
He said at this point the travellers have no money after paying all they had throughout the trip.
Desperate to get to their destination, they end up giving the operators telephone numbers of their relations living in Johannesburg so that they can give them the money upon arrival.
However, that does not guarantee one that they would be driven to Johannesburg.
“They literally take those that fail to pay and drop them at any place they wish and they drive away,” said Edward.
Private trucks are a parallel mode of transportation for these illegal travellers.
Again posing as a traveller, this reporter engaged one Mangochi-based transporter who said those with a passport but without R3, 000 passport cash pay him K70,000.
However, the traveller should have a minimum of R200 for pocket money.
“Those without a passport and R3, 000 in their passport pay K120, 000 but they should also have with them the pocket money. The journey takes two to three days,” he said.
Now in South Africa, these illegal migrants find themselves in a quagmire.
Edward told us that most employers are aware of the illegal status of these Malawians. They, therefore, take advantage of their status by giving them jobs that pay too little and subject them to very difficult labour conditions.
Without proper documentation for their stay in South Africa, they have nowhere to report the abuses to and are often anxious in fear of crackdown by the authorities.
Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security Principal Secretary, Benson Chisamile, said the ministry is aware of illegal migration of people to South Africa.
“What we know is that the police and immigration (department) have been arresting these people and they face the law. You may also appreciate that Malawi has lots of informal borders which these people use and it is difficult for us to track them,” he said.
He said government takes the responsibility of spending money transporting back home Malawians who are in danger abroad because they are Malawians.
“It’s not necessarily that we condone illegal migration,” he said.
Last year, government spent K340 million hiring 40 luxurious buses that ferried about 2,000 Malawians that were caught in xenophobic attacks in South Africa.
Malawi High Commissioner to South Africa, Chrissie Kaponda, was reported in the Mail & Guardian of South Africa
last week that Malawians are flocking to South Africa “every day and the numbers are growing.”
“Most of them say they want to find jobs, yet they lack proper documentation. The situation is very worrisome,” Kaponda said.
She said 45 percent of the illegal immigrants being held at Lindela were from Malawi.
In the repatriation process, the South African government provides transportation and security for the transfer of people to their countries of origin.
Kaponda told the publication that the cost of deporting Malawians was contributing to the slow deportation of some immigrants, especially those from countries that do not share a border with South Africa.
“It is easier to repatriate illegal migrants to countries with which South Africa shares physical borders. Air transport is expensive. It costs over R1.2 million just for 100 illegal migrants to reach Malawi,” she said.
Kaponda also said until six months ago, the repatriations were done by flight, but this was stopped because of the worsening economic climate in South Africa.
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