Police in Musina have arrested 13 Zimbabwean cross-border transport operators, popularly known as omalayitsha, carrying several border jumpers, among them 13 unaccompanied children, who had been smuggled into South Africa through the Beitbridge Border Post.

The station commissioner of the Musina police, Supt Maggie Mathebula, said the suspects were intercepted at a roadblock mounted along the N1 Highway near the Beitbridge Border Post at the weekend. Mathebula said they launched the operation, following an increase in the cases of human trafficking through the border post.

"These transport operators are operating as syndicates involved in illegally transporting people without passports for fees, which are three times more than the actual fares," she said.

Mathebula said the transport operators picked up their "clients" at several points along the crocodile-infested Limpopo River, which is currently in flood.

However, others are smuggled into the country after having bribed both Zimbabwean and South African police and immigration officers at the border post.

Border jumpers are made to pay charges ranging from between R800 to R1 000 per single trip.

Mathebula said the suspects have since been released after they were made to pay fines of R1500 each.

Mirror has since established that most of these illegal transport operators are now "waylaying" would-be border jumpers and deportees at several pick-up points at the Zimbabwean side of the border.

As a "survival strategy", some of them have also recruited touts, who are normally seen at the International Organisation for Migration support centre in Beitbridge touting for "clients" despite the presence of police. The centre was officially opened late last year by the governments of South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The centre offers deportees with shelter, food and free transport to travel back to their respective homes.

Of late there has been an increase in the number of would-be border jumpers now resorting to the services of omalayitsha, who smuggle them through the border post as they now fear either drowning or being attacked by crocodiles in the Limpopo River.

Some of the illegal immigrants have since been deported back to Zimbabwe through the Beitbridge Border Post, including the children who are now in custody of Save the Children Norway, a non-governmental organization which is involved in dealing with child-related matters.

Meanwhile, Mathebula said one Zimbabwean woman was dumped near Musina town by an illegal transporter who was apparently ferrying her to Gauteng. The transporter had dropped off the woman on the pretext that he would pick her up after refueling before he eventually disappeared. Sadly the woman had already paid R800 for the trip to Johannesburg.