HARARE – The government has ramped up efforts to bring home thousands of Zimbabweans caught up in the wave of anti-immigrant hostility in South Africa, deploying dozens of buses from Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg and Durban to ferry returnees to the Beitbridge border post.
George Charamba, the deputy chief secretary in the office of the president and cabinet, said they were tracking bus movements across the affected South African cities as the evacuation gathers pace.
The evacuation comes after anti-immigrant groups gave foreigners a June 30 deadline to return to their countries. Protests across South Africa on Tuesday saw marchers flood the streets. There were isolated incidents of violence and looting.
In Cape Town, three buses had already left for Beitbridge, with a further two routed via Johannesburg “for speedier processing of returnees,” Charamba said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that once processed “the buses will make their way to the Beitbridge Border Post.”
The Epping Repatriation Centre in Cape Town still held about 1,000 Zimbabweans awaiting transport home, with buses already on hand for that purpose, Charamba said.
Two further buses were on the road from Port Elizabeth to Beitbridge. In Johannesburg, 11 buses were on standby at Zimbabwe’s Old Chancery, where 600 people were being processed ahead of departure, while five more buses were stationed at Power House, processing a further 300 returnees.
A further 12 buses from various pick-up points, including Durban, left Johannesburg overnight for the Beitbridge and Musina border posts.
Charamba was emphatic on funding.
“All these far-flung relocation operations are being wholly funded by the government of Zimbabwe which has availed all buses on which Zimbabwean returnees are travelling,” he stated.
Cooperation between Harare and Pretoria on the repatriation effort “remains excellent and empathetic,” Charamba said.
He added that the government “is ready to come to the assistance of all Zimbabweans wishing to come back home” and would help returnees reintegrate into their communities.
The blanket funding claim comes days after Tagwirei and his wife Sandra pledged $1 million through their Bridging Gaps Foundation to support the repatriation of up to 20,000 Zimbabweans, an offer that Zimbabwe’s ministry of local government and public works formally acknowledged in a letter dated June 26.
The pledge, framed by some ruling party activists as a patriotic intervention, drew criticism from others who questioned whether it doubled as a political positioning exercise for the sanctioned businessman.
Charamba has himself pushed back on suggestions that the money had already been handed over to the state.
Writing on X, he said: “Let’s report correctly; the Tagwireis have PLEDGED. When the pledge reaches government, we will make it known.”
Tuesday’s statement, which credits only the government, the UN and embassy staff for the buses ferrying returnees home, did not mention the Tagwirei pledge.
