JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — South Africa deported about 450 Zimbabweans overnight from a border detention center to a homeland beset by political violence and uncertainty, an international aid group said Saturday.
The deportations were “unacceptable” and “in violation of international as well as South African law, which guarantee the right to seek asylum,” said Rachel Cohen, head of the South African branch of the aid group Doctors Without Borders.
The organization said one of its teams visited the center Friday — the day a widely criticized presidential runoff was held in Zimbabwe — and found more than 450 men, women and children there saying they had crossed the border in recent days, “fleeing instability and political violence.” When the aid team returned Saturday with supplies, it found the center empty, the agency said in a statement. It said South African authorities had confirmed all the Zimbabweans were sent back.
Siobhan McCarthy, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Home Affairs, told The Associated Press on Saturday that foreigners caught at the border are screened to determine their status.
“I don’t know the particulars of this case; my assumption would be that they would be in the country illegally and do not qualify for refugee status and therefore were returned to Zimbabwe,” McCarthy said.
As many as 3 million Zimbabweans are in South Africa. Most Zimbabweans who cross the border are considered economic migrants, not refugees. Few apply for asylum, in part because that could make it difficult to return. The Associated Press
