Category: News & Politics

Tough homecoming for Zimbabwean migrants fleeing xenophobia

Zimbabwe migrants disembark from a bus on arrival at the International Organisation for Migration Reception and Support Centre in Beitbridge on April 20 2015. (Pic: AFP)
Zimbabwe migrants disembark from a bus on arrival at the International Organisation for Migration Reception and Support Centre in Beitbridge on April 20 2015. (Pic: AFP)

More than 2 000 Zimbabweans displaced by xenophobic attacks in South Africa have packed their bags for home. But Zimbabwe, a country teetering on the verge of economic collapse, is unlikely to offer them the means to restart their lives.

The attacks on foreigners – mainly Zimbabweans, Somalis, Malawians, Mozambicans and Nigerians – started in Durban more than two weeks ago following comments by Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, suggesting that African migrants in South Africa were criminals who should go back to their countries and stop stealing jobs and opportunities from locals.

Machete- and gun-wielding South Africans burned foreigners’ businesses and homes, looting goods, and forcing their inhabitants to flee. Six foreign nationals died in the attacks, which spread from Durban to other parts of the country, including Johannesburg. The worst of the violence has, for the most part, subsided, but African migrants are well aware that they could re-surface at any time.

Several countries, including Malawi, Mozambique and Nigeria, have tried to evacuate their citizens from affected areas, but Zimbabwe, which has by far the largest number of nationals living in South Africa, is faced with the biggest challenge. Over years of political and economic upheaval in Zimbabwe, some 1.5 million Zimbabweans are thought to have made the trek south in search of safety and better opportunities. Zimbabwe has set up an inter-ministerial rescue taskforce to repatriate several thousand of them.

Labour and Social Welfare Secretary Ngoni Masoka told IRIN that the Zimbabwean government expected to receive some 2 400 returnees who had opted to return home following the attacks, but added the actual numbers returning could be higher.

“We are getting constant updates from our embassy in South Africa. There could be Zimbabweans who might have decided not to approach us for help for various reasons, so it is difficult to know how many are coming back exactly,” he said.

The first batch of 433 returnees arrived last week in government-provided buses at Beitbridge border post from a Durban transit camp where they were being housed following the attacks. According to Masoka, the taskforce is determining their needs, qualifications and destinations so they can be referred to provincial and district welfare officers for help with reintegration. The Zimbabwe Red Cross Society and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) are providing returnees with food and other essentials, while specialists are offering counselling and medical attention.

Masoka declined to say whether the government had set aside a budget for the returnees.

Under no illusions

Jairos Mangwanya (36) is under no illusions that life back at home will be easy. He was among the first batch of returnees last week, but decided to hitchhike to Harare, the capital, after becoming impatient with delays getting on a government bus. He left his pregnant wife and two other children to follow on the government-provided transport and went ahead to organise them some temporary accommodation.

Mangwanya had worked in Durban as a teacher for the past eight years. He fled with his family when Zimbabweans at a neighbouring house were attacked and their belongings looted.

“We didn’t have the time to pack our belongings because the attackers were coming to our house. We only took some blankets and clothes and fled to the police station. We left our passports, educational certificates, money and other vital belongings behind,” Mangwanya told IRIN.

“That means we have virtually nowhere to start from. I can’t look for another job without my certificates and I know it will be a long time before the examinations authorities and birth registration officials here can replace my documents.”

Finding a place for him and his family to stay in Harare will be tough. Space at his two brothers’ homes is already limited.

“My brothers say my wife and the two children will go to one of the houses and I to the other. That must be for a short period, though, because they also have large families and dependants from the extended family,” said Mangwanya.

The other option is to take the family to their rural home in Mount Darwin, some 200km away from Harare. But going there will greatly reduce his chances of being able to provide for his family or of his two children being able to attend school.

Mangwanya left South Africa before receiving his April salary and is likely to forfeit his pension and other employment benefits.

Trynos Musumba (41), who was travelling from Beitbridge with Mangwanda, had been working as a plumber in Durban and sending part of his earnings to his 70-year-old mother and unemployed sisters in Zimbabwe. He left his South African wife and four-year-old child behind in Durban.

“With my return, it means no one will be able to fend for my family here. My wife is not employed and she will find life tough. I might have to look at ways of going back to a safe city in South Africa and looking for another job,” he told IRIN.

His mother, who is diabetic, and the rest of the family live in rural Mhondoro, some 50km west of Harare. The area is one of many in the country to have suffered crop failure this year following poor rains.

“This is a very bad situation being made worse for the migrants,” said John Robertson, an independent economic analyst. “They fled Zimbabwe to look for better opportunities and are returning home to the very economic crisis they tried to run away from. The situation could actually be worse than when these people went away.”

He added that unofficially, unemployment in Zimbabwe is close to 80 percent, despite official figures putting it at 11 percent.

Japhet Moyo, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), told IRIN: “Most of the companies have closed down and the few that remain are struggling. Worse still, government cannot absorb [those being laid off] because it doesn’t have the money to employ more people.”

Government too broke to help

Robertson said it was unlikely that the social welfare department would help the returnees in any meaningful way. “Our government has never had an unemployment benefit scheme or social security policy and is too broke to fund any intervention to help the returning Zimbabweans re-integrate. It will thus leave everything to the extended family, hoping that relatives will cushion the returnees.”

Musumba said that on the bus he took home with other returnees “many said they will never return to South Africa to look for jobs, but I know as soon as there is peace, they will go back because the situation in our country is so bad.”

Gabriel Shumba, a South Africa-based human rights lawyer who heads the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF), said some 2 000 Zimbabweans remained in camps near Durban. Although churches, NGOs and the South African government are providing some aid, many are still in need of food, clothing, counselling and medical attention.

“The situation remains precarious. There is need for the humanitarian community to scale up support for the people in camps,” he told IRIN.

Shumba said his organisation was working to provide legal assistance to those who had been attacked or their property looted in an effort to ensure perpetrators could be arrested and brought to justice. South African authorities have a poor record of prosecuting perpetrators of past attacks.

He added that he did not believe repatriating victims to Zimbabwe was the answer, arguing that it “would embolden the attackers and encourage more attacks”.

One year on, jailed Ethiopian bloggers are still awaiting trial

(Pic: Flickr / OER Africa )
(Pic: Flickr / OER Africa )

In 2012, nine Ethiopian men and women came together to create a blogging collective known as Zone 9. In an autocratic country rife with political corruption and where state-run media is utterly dominant, this was a bold move.

Writing in both English and Amharic, the bloggers covered some of the country’s most pressing social and economic issues, giving life to stories all but absent from local media.

Zone 9 believed it was imperative to speak publicly about the national constitution, which claims to protect freedom of expression and the right of assembly, and which demands elections every five years. The bloggers thought that if citizens could hold their government accountable through a free press, the country’s civic fabric could become stronger. Citizens could have some say in how the country was run.

On April 25 2014, the writers were taken from their homes and detained by police. After 11 weeks behind bars, they were charged under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism laws.

Nothing new
Ethiopia currently ranks fourth on a list of the world’s most censored countries, according to a Committee to Protect Journalists report released [last] week.

In the run-up to elections in May, the report found that the government had filed lawsuits accusing six publications of “encouraging terrorism”, forcing 16 journalists to flee into exile, while the sole internet provider, Ethio Telecom, stand accused of routinely suspending critical news websites.

This is nothing new: over the last 24 years the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front has fine-tuned its social and political control, whilst simultaneously being credited by western governments for transforming the once poverty-stricken country into a rising, dynamic and stable one.

They weren’t the first. A series of Ethiopia’s successive and diametrically opposed regimes – from the military regime under Mengistu Haile Mariam (ousted in 1991) and the imperial rule under Haile Selassie before him – have had one thing in common: all have jailed and killed opposition activists, journalists and dissidents.

The Zone 9 name is in part inspired by this history. Kality, a prison on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, is divided into eight different zones, and it’s the last which has gained infamy – zone eight – home to journalists, human rights activists and dissidents.

Endalk Chala, one of the three Zone 9ers who remains free today, said that when the group formed “we decided to create a blog for the proverbial prison in which all Ethiopians live: this is Zone 9.”

The Ethiopian government accuses the bloggers of attempting to “overthrow, modify or suspend the Federal or State Constitution; by violence, threats, or conspiracy”.

The bloggers are expected to face trial later this year. If convicted, all of them face a minimum of eight years in prison.

Ethiopia is the beneficiary of significant flows of foreign military and humanitarian aid, largely intended to bolster and maintain the country as a security stronghold in the Horn of Africa, where levels of ethnic tension, corruption and crime are high.

With a genuine terror threat emanating from neighbouring Somalia, the government has developed sweeping anti-terrorism laws with the blessing of the international governments. But these laws are frequently used to suppress any hint of dissent within its own population.

From late 2005 until 2012 there were no major public demonstrations from the political opposition. There was also little critique: Ethiopia does not have a single independent daily newspaper, only a handful of state-sanctioned FM radio stations, and one government television station.

After the 2005 national elections, the regime banned opposition groups and labour unions, including religious groups, and imposed state control over their websites.

After the following 2010 election, where the government claimed to have won 99.9% of seats in parliament, the regime took control of all of the country’s major institutions including the courts, the media, mosques, churches, schools and universities. By 2012, the internet became the sole option for public communications and discourse.

‘Freedom of expression is considered immoral’

In 2013 amidst a climate of mounting intimidation and surveillance the Zone 9ers let their blog go quiet for six months.

They were unnerved by the treatment of award-winning journalists such as Eskinder Nega, Reeyot Alemu and Wubeshet Taye who had been, along with nine others, sentenced to between eight and 18 years in prison.

All had written columns criticising the anti-terrorism laws, the very same legislation they were later charged with violating.

But in 2014 the bloggers decided they could not remain quiet any longer. They published a letter explaining their silence.

“Last time we published a piece on our collective blog was about six months ago,” they wrote. “We know that Ethiopia is a country where freedom of expression is effectively repressed … Our rulers consider freedom of expression as something immoral.”

“When we became quiet, we thought we would be at least forgotten.” But they weren’t.

On April 25, just a week after posting the letter on Facebook, six members of the blogging team and three journalists apparently “affiliated” with them were arrested.

One year on they still await trial. The charge sheet accuses the bloggers of having received training in communication encryption in Security-in-a-Box – a digital security toolkit to help human rights groups protect themselves from surveillance, which is widely available online.

It also highlights their efforts in organising social media campaigns to engage more Ethiopians in conversations about human rights and national law.

In a letter about his experiences in prison and his hopes for the future, imprisoned blogger Natnael Feleke recently wrote: “To be honest, how much time I will be spending in prison is not the most pressing issue on my mind right now. Rather, I am worried about what will happen unless the international community assumes a firm stance on Ethiopia, demands progress with democratisation, and halts the millions of dollars pouring the regime’s way.”

“But ultimately,” Feleke writes, ‘it is the willingness to suffer and sacrifice [for our cause]’, in the words of Nelson Mandela, that will determine our fate.”

Ellery Roberts Biddle and Endalk Chala for Global Voices, in collaboration with the Guardian Africa network

South Africa deploys soldiers to anti-immigrant hotspots

 

South African soldiers deployed overnight to tackle gangs hunting down and killing foreigners after at least seven people died in a wave of anti-immigrant violence. (Pic: AFP)
South African soldiers who were deployed overnight to tackle gangs hunting down and killing foreigners after at least seven people died in a wave of anti-immigrant violence. (Pic: AFP)

South Africa sent soldiers on Tuesday to help stop anti-immigrant violence in areas of Durban and Johannesburg where at least seven people have been killed in the past three weeks.

South Africa has been criticised by governments, including China, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, for failing to protect foreigners as armed mobs were shown on TV looting immigrant-owned shops and front-page photographs in a Sunday newspaper showed a Mozambican man being beaten and stabbed to death in broad daylight.

Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said a Zimbabwean couple were shot in the Johannesburg shanty town of Alexandra on Monday night but survived.

Briefing reporters on the deployment of troops to Alexandra and to the coastal town of Durban, where the violence started, she said: “There will be those who will be critical of this decision but the vulnerable will appreciate it.”

Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini defended himself on Monday against claims that previous comments he made about foreigners sparked the anti-immigrant attacks.

On Tuesday, four men, aged between 18 and 22 years old, were charged in Alexandra’s Magistrates Court with the murder and robbery of the Mozambican man, Emmanuel Sithole, a street vendor in the low-income area.

The men covered their heads with hoodies when they were brought into the court. They are set to appear again on May 4.

Outside the court, protesters picketed and locals gathered.

“It’s not right this thing, they shouldn’t have killed him,” said Fulufhelo Ravhura, a 37-year-old Alexandra resident. “That guy was selling sweets and cigarettes, how was he stealing anyone’s job?”

Periodic outbreaks of anti-immigrant violence have been blamed on high unemployment, which is officially around 25 percent although economists say is much higher, widespread poverty and vast wealth gap.

Hundreds of Malawians marched on South Africa’s High Commission in the capital Lilongwe on Tuesday, demanding charges be laid against King Zwelithini amid calls for a boycott of South African businesses.

Malawi’s Information Minister, Kondwani Nankhumwa, said on Monday two Malawians were killed in the attacks and that efforts were under way to repatriate about 3 000 of its nationals.

In Zambia, two private commercial radio stations have stopped playing South African music.

In 2008, South African troops helped to end violence after more than 60 foreigners were killed in similar unrest as locals vented frustrations, particularly a lack of jobs.

African migrants in Europe: Debunking the myths

Migrants wait in a boat during a rescue operation on April 15 2015 off the coast of Sicily. (Pic: AFP / Handout)
Migrants wait in a boat during a rescue operation on April 15 2015 off the coast of Sicily. (Pic: AFP / Handout)

The death toll from the capsizing of a boat carrying migrants off the Libyan coast on the weekend has hit 800, and could reach 950, according to latest reports, piling pressure on European governments to respond to the rising migrant boat tragedies in the Mediterranean.

Amnesty International described the capsizing as a “man-made tragedy that could well have been avoided”, and along with other humanitarian groups is calling for increased sea patrols.

As springtime brings calmer seas, there is likely to be an increase in the number of crossing attempts – and more deaths. Already, more than 1 600 migrants have died in the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2015.

But looking at the broader social, economic and demographic forces driving the crossings, sadly, the drownings are likely to be the new normal.

We debunk some of the myths surrounding the Africa-Europe sea migrations, and give you the two graphs you need to know:

More sea patrols will lead to less deaths

In 2013, when 350 migrants died under similar circumstances, the Italian government put into place a navy search-and-rescue operation known as Mare Nostrum, which patrolled the Mediterrenean and responded to distress calls.

But it soon emerged that search-and-rescue actually seemed to be inadvertently leading to more deaths – cynically, human traffickers responded to the patrols by packing even more migrants off, knowing that they would be rescued in case things go awry.

In the past year alone, there have been a four-fold increase in drownings, and Italian authorities have rescued about 100 000 migrants at sea.

Italy scaled back the mission after failing to persuade its European partners to help meet its operating costs of $9.7 million per month, and now does not do search-and-rescues directly, but asks merchant ships in the area to respond to the calls.

But with the latest tragedy, the calls to reinstitute Mare Nostrum are getting louder. According to the statement from Amnesty, the boat had sent a request for help to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Rome; the centre requested a Portuguese merchant vessel to attend the call, but it did not get there in time.

German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung at the weekend denounced the EU as a ”union of murderers”, accepting the deaths of refugees in the hope of discouraging other refugees from following them.

Europe is overwhelmed by the flood of African migrants at its doorstep

The tragic drownings in the Mediterranean get much media coverage, but African migrants are small fraction of the people trying to get to Europe every year.

Data from the UN’s World Migration Report shows that just 12% of migrants into Europe are from Africa, the majority (52%) are from within Europe itself, largely Eastern Europe and the Balkan states.

Even among the victims of human traffickers into Europe, the UN’s Global Trafficking in Persons report shows that 17% are from Africa, mainly West Africa (14%) and 3% coming from the rest of sub-Saharan Africa – nearly two thirds are from Eastern Europe.

Immigrants are unwanted and not needed

Despite the popular calls to stop the migrations, Europe is currently ageing and shrinking fast, and so has a high demand for people. Germany and Italy are the second and third-oldest countries in the world at the moment, with half the population older then 44 years.

On the other hand, Africa is young and growing, with nearly every country in sub-Saharan Africa having a median age younger than 20.

Furthermore, tough austerity measures in much of southern Europe creates a demand for cheaper workers, and Africa can easily fill that gap by hopping across the sea. In Italy, for instance, 85% of Cape Verdean immigrants are women, mostly working as domestic workers.

But the politics in Europe has swung to favour the far right, anti-immigrant parties. In France, far-right National Front (FN) has had its best showing in years winning 12 French towns, two seats in the Senate, and top position in the European Parliament elections in 2014 elections.

The populist anti-immigrant Finns party, formerly the True Finns came second in general elections on Sunday and is likely to be part of the new government in Helsinki. In the UK, the anti-immigrant UK Independence Party (Ukip) is also gaining some ground.

So there’s a strong demographic and economic demand for immigrants, but loud political opposition to it. Will it mean the end of the flow of immigrants? No. It only means that the market for illegal, rather than legal, migration will grow, and sadly, the drownings in the Mediterranean are likely to become the new normal.

Migrants are desperately poor

Despite the common portrayal of the migrants as desperately fleeing poverty, the data suggests otherwise.

Although it appears they are generally less wealthy and less skilled compared to the migrants who directly go to France, UK and the US on student and work visas, they are rarely from the most destitute families.

Research indicates that migrants tend to be from moderate socio-economic backgrounds and are often from urban areas in their countries of origin. A substantial proportion has secondary or higher education.

With human traffickers charging between $700 and $3 000 for a place on one of the Mediterranean boats, it’s not the kind of fee poor people can afford.

Rather than fleeing poverty, migrants tend to move either “because of a general lack of perspectives for self-realisation in their origin countries and the concomitant inability to meet their personal aspirations,” says this research paper, partly driven by a greater awareness of the possibility out there, mediated by the recent explosion in mobile and Internet access.

It’s a man’s world

Although women and girls comprise the vast majority of detected victims worldwide, women are also prosecuted and convicted of the trafficking crime far more often than for most other types of crime.

Some 30% of convicted traffickers worldwide between 2010 and 2012 were women, whereas the average female conviction rate for other crimes is usually in the region of 10-15%.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said many of them act as guards, recruiters and money collectors, to gain the trust of victims; women involved in human trafficking operations are often in close contact with the victims, whether it is recruiting them, deceiving them or transporting them.

Women are also more likely to be convicted of trafficking. Given that many investigations are based on victims’ testimonies, these low-ranking female traffickers who have contact with victims are most likely to be identified and convicted, while the men at the top of the chain are rarely seen or known by the victims.

Christine Mungai for MG Africa.

700 migrants feared dead in Mediterranean shipwreck off Libya

Rescued migrants watch as the body of person who died after a fishing boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast, is brought ashore along with 23 others. (Pic: AFP)
Rescued migrants watch as the body of person who died after a fishing boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast, is brought ashore along with 23 others. (Pic: AFP)

A major rescue operation is under way in the Mediterranean after as many as 700 migrants are feared to have drowned just outside Libyan waters, in what could prove to be the worst disaster yet involving migrants being smuggled to Europe.

Italian coastguards have retrieved 49 survivors so far and about 20 bodies, according to the interior ministry, after the boat went down overnight about 60 miles (96km) off the Libyan coast and 120 miles (193km) south of the Italian island of Lampedusa.

The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, told the Guardian that up to 700 may remain in the water, according to numbers supplied by a survivor. The accident happened after the migrants saw a merchant ship in the distance and scrambled to attract its attention, over-balancing the fishing boat in which they were travelling.

Barbara Molinario, a spokeswoman for UNHCR in Rome, said: “They wanted to be rescued. They saw another ship. They were trying to make themselves known to it.”

If confirmed, Sunday morning’s accident means that at least 1 500 migrants have died so far in 2015 while on route to Europe – at least 30 times higher than last year’s equivalent figure, which was itself a record. It comes just days after 400 others drowned last week in a similar incident.

The deaths prompted fresh calls for Europe to reinstate full-scale search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean. Last October, the EU opted not to replace the Italian-run operation Mare Nostrum, which saved about 100 000 lives last year, amid fears that it was encouraging smugglers and migrants to organise more trips to Europe.

Pope Francis, an outspoken advocate for greater European-wide participation in rescue efforts, reiterated his call for action during mass on Sunday after learning of the latest disaster.

“They are men and women like us – our brothers seeking a better life, starving, persecuted, wounded, exploited, victims of war,” he said from St Peter’s Square.

Save the Children, one of the primary aid agencies working with migrants arriving in Italy, called on EU leaders to hold crisis talks in the next 48 hours and to resume search-and-rescue operations.

‘Europe cannot look the other way’
“It is time to put humanity before politics and immediately restart the rescue,” the organisation said in a statement. “Europe cannot look the other way while thousands die on our shores.”

Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, called for an emergency meeting at Palazzo Chigi with top government ministers, including foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni, on Sunday to discuss the crisis. The EU commission for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, is due in Italy on Thursday.

But the huge rise in deaths in 2015, and the largely similar levels of arrivals in Italy, suggest the tactic has not worked. In Tripoli on Saturday, a smuggler told the Guardian he was not aware of Mare Nostrum in the first place, nor knew that it had finished.

“I’ve not heard of that. What is that – from 2009?” said the smuggler, who says his network organises 20 trips a week during the busy summer months. “Many people would go on the boats, even if they didn’t have any rescue operations.”

Migrants interviewed this week in Libya, the main launching pad for those seeking to reach Europe, say the demand will continue despite the deaths. Mohamed Abdallah, a 21-year-old from Darfur who fled war at home to find another war in Libya, said he could not stay in Libya, nor return to Sudan.

“There is a war in my country, there’s no security, no equality, no freedom,” Abdallah said. “But if I stay here, it’s just like my country … I need to go to Europe.”

In Misrata, a major Libyan port, coastguards told the Guardian that the smuggling trips would continue to rise because Libyan officials were woefully under-resourced.

In all of western Libya, the area where the people-smugglers operate, coastguards have just three operational boats. Another is broken, and four more are in Italy for repairs. Libyans say they have been told they will not be returned until after the conclusion of peace talks between the country’s two rival governments.

“There is a substantial increase this year,” said Captain Tawfik al-Skail, deputy head of the Misratan coastguard. “And come summer, with the better weather, if there isn’t immediate assistance and help from the EU, then there will be an overwhelming increase.”

Save the Children has been on the front lines in the migrant crisis, and said it was growing increasingly worried about an expected increase in children making the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.

On Friday, it reported that nearly two dozen badly burned Eritreans had landed in Lampedusa that morning, the victims of a chemical fire in the Libyan factory where they were held before their departure.

According to witness accounts, five people, including a baby, died in the blast – which occurred after a gas canister exploded – and the rest of the victims were not brought to a hospital by the smugglers holding them. Instead, the injured were put on a ship bound for Italy a few days later. The victims were airlifted to hospitals across Sicily on their arrival.

The story was confirmed by UNHCR, which also interviewed survivors.