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MUSINE – Zimbabwean street vendor Memory Chauke didn’t get very far when she jumped a fence into neighboring South Africa on the first day its borders reopened after a six-month shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
South African patrol guards had anticipated that Zimbabweans would resume illegal crossings into the country to purchase goods as soon as travel restrictions were lifted.
Hundreds of people were arrested as they tried to smuggle groceries into impoverished Zimbabwe, where an economic recession and rampant hyperinflation have destroyed livelihoods.
Chauke was caught on the way back to her village, on a gravel road about 500 meters from the official Beitbridge border post.
She looked bleak and exhausted sitting under a large thorny tree, surrounded by shopping bags.
Chauke said it was the first time she had been arrested during the crossing.
“I always run,” he told AFP. “Today, I didn’t manage.
The 45-year-old mother of five had just walked more than 20 kilometers to Musina, South Africa’s northernmost town, and bought products that she planned to resell in Zimbabwe for a profit.
“Where we stay there is no food, there is not enough food, so we are hungry,” he said. “We come to nearby stores and buy cheaper food, then we go back to Zimbabwe.”
Others sat on the ground next to her, clutching newly purchased pots, cornmeal, fuel, and even couches and a bed as they awaited their fate.
Many Zimbabweans rely on goods purchased in wealthier South Africa for basic supplies, and informal cross-border trade is a lucrative business.
Some merchants even risk the treacherous crocodile-infested Limpopo River that divides the two countries to reach South African stores at more affordable prices.
“It is very dangerous, but there is nothing I can do,” said Chauke, who had not dared to venture across the border since South Africa closed on March 27.
She hoped to beg forgiveness and “go back to my children.”
‘A hungry stomach’
South Africa, the continent’s worst affected country by COVID-19, reopened some land borders, as well as its three main airports, on October 1.
The Zimbabwean authorities had also planned to resume international travel on the same day.
But the Beitbridge border post, one of the busiest crossings in Africa, has remained closed on the Zimbabwean side.
Private vehicles were stopped at the gate and told to turn around.
Only commercial trucks were allowed through, which were already exempt from travel restrictions.
“We have not yet opened the Beitbridge border,” Zimbabwe’s Home Affairs Minister Kazembe Kazembe told local media on Thursday, without giving a reason for the delay.
South African border patrols said they still intercepted many Zimbabweans jumping over the fence on Thursday.
“There was a slight increase in the number, but for most of them it was in regards to purchase,” military officer David Mathetsha told AFP.
“A hungry stomach is capable of doing anything,” he explained, adding that agents had confiscated a variety of goods and bulk purchases.
Mathetsha said that thousands of Zimbabweans crossed into South Africa every day before the pandemic.
“At some point you would arrest a person more than 20 times,” he recalled.
The fence separating South Africa and Zimbabwe has been notoriously porous since its de-electrification in 1994.
A multi-million rand renovation project was suspended earlier this year after South Africa’s parliament deemed a new stretch of fencing inadequate and expensive.
