11/08/2004

IRIN

MUSINA -- In the South African border town of Musina, authorities regularly detain dozens of undocumented immigrants, sometimes for days on end, in an outdoor facility without toilets or running water.

Men, women and children, including those seeking refugee status in South Africa, are held behind a chain-link fence and razor wire in the yard of the Musina police station.

"We arrest someone, put them in a [holding enclosure], with no roof, no water, no toilets," said the police station's commissioner, Superintendent Mainganye Godfrey Nephawe. "It's not human, and we're worried about most of them."

Located just 12 km south of the Zimbabwe border, Musina is on the front line of South Africa's efforts to curb illegal immigration - an increasingly controversial issue in this nation of an estimated 46 million people. Yet, while individual officials express concern about conditions in the detention facility in Musina, the South African authorities have been accused of not moving quickly enough to rectify the situation.
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Because there is no internationally recognised conflict in Zimbabwe, the South African government maintains that undocumented immigrants from Zimbabwe are "economic migrants", rather than refugees. But Refugees International, a Washington DC-based humanitarian organisation, has reported that 5,000 Zimbabweans are currently seeking political asylum in the country.

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