A 27-year-old security guard manning the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) centre for deportees in Beitbridge was sentenced to an effective one year in jail last Monday, for facilitating the release of a deported four-year-old girl from the center, in return for R50 offered by an unregistered cross-border transport operator who intended to smuggle the girl back to South Africa.

Cleopas Vurayayi was convicted on his own guilty plea to bribery by Beitbridge magistrate Mr Jabulani Mzinyathi.

The court was told that on 16 October, Vurayayi was on duty, manning the entrance gate at the IOM Center, when he was approached by the cross-border driver. The accused was then offered R50 so that he could facilitate the matter of letting the driver pick up the girl who had been deported from South Africa.

The girl was temporarily housed at the center after her deportation. The court heard that Vurayayi eventually released the girl, who was subsequently transported back to South Africa illegally.

However, another IOM employee spotted him, became suspicious and then alerted the police, leading to the security guard’s arrest. The money offered to the accused was also recovered.

Of late there has been an increase in the number of unaccompanied children being smuggled into South Africa by these unregistered cross-border transport operators, known as omalayitsha, through the Beitbridge border post.

Recently, two Zimbabwean toddlers, Pappa John (5) and Themba Malingisi (4), were found abandoned in a bushy area near Musina by members of the SANDF. The two children were part of a group of illegal immigrants who were being ferried to Gauteng by omalayitsha.