Zimbabwe’s Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Kembo Mohadi, said the majority of illegal immigrants who have been descending on the Beit Bridge Border Post in the past few weeks are not really refugees.

Mohadi told Limpopo Mirror that the flood of illegal immigrants at the border post was the result of some rogue elements who were seeking to crossing cross into South Africa illegally by pretending to be “refugees”, a development which he said police and immigration authorities were looking into.

“The problem at the Beit Bridge Border Post is that there are some people and foreigners who have been taking advantage of a laxity in security to cross our borders to South Africa withdubious agendas. These very people want to gain entry into the neighbouring country illegally while purporting to be refugees,” he said.

Mohadi said genuine refugees seeking assistance to cross into South Africa should go via Zimbabwe’s refugee camps. “I want to believe that the United Nations Refugees Charter is clear and those refugees who are genuinely seeking to cross into neighbouring South Africa should know where to go if they are really seeking help,” he said.

Mohadi said refugees seeking permits to cross borders could be assisted but only when proper procedures had been followed.

“If it’s the issue of asylum permits, they should go back to their camps and get the assistance they might require. Our department of Labour and Social Services, which deals with recognized refugees, can also assist them,” he said. There has been an abundance of Somali refugees in Beit Bridge after they were refused entry at the South African entry port by Home Affairs officials.

The barring of Somalis from entering South Africa follows the recent enactment of the Refugee Amendment Bill by the SA Parliament. The refugees use Zimbabwe as their transit point to South Africa after having entered that country through the Nyamapanda Border Post.

Most of the Somalis refugees do not have the relevant documents and, according to international immigration laws, refugees are supposed to have referral clearance letters from their first country of safety before they can be allowed to proceed to the next country. More undocumented refugees from East and Central Africa continue to flock into Zimbabwe in transit to South Africa through the Beit Bridge Border Post.

Last week, Zimbabwean authorities rounded up a group of 20 of these "refugees" comprising Ethiopians and Congolese. The illegal immigrants were rounded up near the border while trying to cross into South Africa illegally through undesignated entry points along the Limpopo River. They were taken to a temporary holding centre in the border town.

The 106 undocumented Somalis who have been kept at a temporary holding centre in Beit Bridge were also ferried to a refugee camp in Chipinge last week.