HRW report on Zimbabweans seeking refuge in South Africa

Human Rights Watch publicou onte un informe de 119 páxinas sobre a situación dos cidadáns de Zimbabwe que cruzaron a fronteira con Sudáfrica (entre un millón e un millón e medio) fuxindo da violenta represión política, de masivos desaloxos de vivendas, da penosa situación económica… e logo encóntranse en situación irregular, “sen papeis”, expulsados, explotados ó traballaren sen contrato, agredidos en ataques xenófobos.

O informe leva por título “Neighbors In Need: Zimbabweans Seeking Refuge in South Africa”. Copio un extracto da súa introducción:

Since 2005 an estimated one to 1.5 million Zimbabweans have fled across the border into South Africa, the region’s economic power. They have run from persecution, for the majority in the form of targeted, mass, forced evictions destroying homes and livelihoods, and from economic destitution as the Zimbabwean economy collapses. Recent refugees fleeing the brutal crackdown on political opponents of President Robert Mugabe in the aftermath of the March 2008 Zimbabwean elections are the latest wave.

In South Africa they face a vulnerable and uncertain situation. Without documents, they have no right to work and have limited rights and access to social assistance such as health care and housing. Liable to arrest and deportation at any time, they live in permanent insecurity. Due to South Africa’s dysfunctional asylum system and unlawful deportation practices, many of the tens of thousands that have applied for asylum are at constant risk of being refouled—unlawfully returned.

These are not voluntary economic migrants, even if for many economic destitution is one of multiple reasons for crossing into South Africa. Their presence in South Africa underlines a failure of foreign policy—the failure to use South Africa’s leverage effectively to address the brutal human rights violations and failed economic policies in Zimbabwe causing their flight. Their undocumented status and vulnerability in South Africa, and the increasing public resentment against them, represents a failure of domestic policy—the failure to develop and implement a legal, comprehensive, and workable policy to address the reality of the existence of Zimbabweans in South Africa. [...]