MUSINA - Four Zimbabweans, desperately clinging to a rock and debris in the flooded Limpopo River, survived for three days without food or shelter, before they were discovered by an SANDF patrol last week.

They were brought to safety by police, assisted by a member of the public, in a four-hour rescue bid. Earlier, a fifth member of the marooned group was swept away and disappeared under the water.

A search for the missing person was conducted by helicopter and by a diving team of the Police. The search was called off on Friday afternoon.

The five Zimbabweans, ravished by serious food shortages in the vicinity of Masvinga, in the south of Zimbabwe, told their rescuers that they decided to cross the river to South Africa in a desperate bid to find food in order to survive. Almost halfway through the river, they apparently misjudged the stability of a sandbank, and were swept away by a treacherous undercurrent. They grabbed hold of a rock, which could not accommodate them all. Two were swept further downstream where they managed to cling to a log, protruding from an island of debris.

A third member of the group also left the rock and aimed for the island. Before he could reach it, his comrades heard him yelling, before he disappeared under the water. They never saw him again.

Mr Johan Pretorius, a resident of Musina, acted as guide for the police rescue party, coordinated by Capt Heslinga of Musina Crime Prevention, after a SANDF patrol had spotted the survivors in the river, near the farm Leeudraai, East of Musina.

"When we reached the gate in the border patrol road, we could distinctly hear the stranded men shouting from the river. Two were clinging to a log on an island. Higher up, we saw two clinging to a rock," Pretorius said.

The rescuers braved the raging, crocodile-infested river to take lifelines to the survivors. "We fastened the ropes to the rock and to the log, and then assisted the men to the river bank. It was a painfully slow process, full of risks, but we managed to get them out safely," he said.

The survivors were shivering with shock, cold and exhaustion. "They went through a hellish ordeal. One could not but take pity on them."

After having fed the survivors, they were taken to Musina, where they received treatment in the hospital, before begin deported back to Zimbabwe.