VZCZCXRO2600
RR RUEHJO
DE RUEHSA #2677/01 3451037
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 101037Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY PRETORIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6685
INFO RUEHOR/AMEMBASSY GABORONE 5406
RUEHSB/AMEMBASSY HARARE 3763
RUEHTO/AMEMBASSY MAPUTO 5987
RUEHTN/AMCONSUL CAPE TOWN 6357
RUEHJO/AMCONSUL JOHANNESBURG 8707

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 PRETORIA 002677 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR A/S FRAZER, DAS THOMPSON, AND AF/S 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM SF
SUBJECT: ZIMBABWEAN EXODUS STRAINS SAG BORDER RESOURCES 
 
REF: A. PRETORIA 1680 
     ¶B. PRETORIA 2643 
     ¶C. PRETORIA 1619 
     ¶D. PRETORIA 1397 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  On December 5-6, U.S. and U.K poloffs together with 
senior CDC and DFID officers traveled to Musina, near the 
Zimbabwe border.  The trip aimed to take stock of growing 
migrant flows, observe the SAG's capacity to process and 
protect vulnerable migrants, and assess SAG efforts to 
contain a recent outbreak of cholera.  High volumes of asylum 
applicants have forced the SAG's new reception center to 
relocate to a showground, where thousands of transients wait 
their turn in a field without shelter, security, food, or 
sufficient sanitation.  Many are scammed, attacked, robbed, 
and/or raped en route to Musina, and once in town they risk 
arrest and deportation.  Municipal authorities are slow to 
respond to NGO appeals -- wary that any support could draw 
more migrants -- while the hospital's CEO refused us entry 
and has rebuffed foreign assistance.  It was widely hoped 
that the Minister of Health's December 9 visit would enable 
international health workers' support on cholera, and perhaps 
even break down municipal resistance on migrant protection. 
End Summary. 
 
------------------------------------------- 
Concerns: Migration, Protection, and Health 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  On December 5-6 poloffs and Center for Disease Control 
(CDC) officers traveled to Musina, about 10 kilometers from 
the border with Zimbabwe, in a joint visit with counterparts 
from the UK High Commission and its Department For 
International Development (DFID).  Four months after our 
previous trip (ref A), this follow-up visit aimed to 
understand growing volumes and changing characteristics of 
migration flows; to observe humanitarian needs and protection 
assistance provided by the SAG, IOs, and NGOs, particularly 
to women and children; and to assess urgent health measures 
undertaken in response to the recent influx of cholera (ref 
B) from Zimbabwe.  Human Rights Watch had privately warned of 
deteriorating conditions in border areas, and encouraged the 
international community to advocate for a more vigorous SAG 
response.  In Musina we met with multilaterals IOM, UNHCR, SA 
Red Cross, and OCHA; with aid groups Save the Children (SC) 
and Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF); and with SAG officers of 
the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and the South African 
Police Service (SAPS). 
 
-------------------------- 
More Migrants, and Needier 
-------------------------- 
 
¶3.  Migrant flows continue to grow, and lately to accumulate 
in Musina as the SAG struggles to process them.  In July, we 
observed manageable queues outside DHA's new center, and 
Musina had the normal border town feel of flow-through 
traffic.  Now Musina's streets and parks are noticeably more 
crowded.  To afford space to daily queues of about 1,800 
applicants, DHA has moved into mobile trailers at local 
showgrounds, where we saw hundreds of men sitting in stadium 
bleachers under a blazing sun hoping to be listed for the 
next day's processing.  (Women and children are put at the 
head of the queue.)  DHA's six data-entry officers and four 
asylum interviewers can issue only 300 temporary permits a 
day and render 50 asylum verdicts.  The mounting backlog has 
spawned a population of transients awaiting papers. 
 
¶4.  The latest arrivals are reportedly less able-bodied and 
more destitute than in July.  Whereas the longstanding norm 
Qmore destitute than in July.  Whereas the longstanding norm 
had been for single male breadwinners to come to South 
Africa, register at Musina, and proceed to Johannesburg to 
earn money to remit home, this year entire families began to 
arrive to join the men.  Now, desperation in Zimbabwe is such 
that single women, pregnant women, old persons, and even the 
disabled and blind are crossing the border.  Groups of 
unaccompanied minors as young as eight years old roam the 
town together.  IOM says they resist the idea of being 
returned home, saying they do not want to go back to hunger. 
Many of the recent migrants lack the money for transport to 
Johannesburg, so those too weak to walk there are stranded in 
Musina.  Others are required to wait in town for an asylum 
 
PRETORIA 00002677  002 OF 004 
 
 
interview.  A shantytown is reported to have sprung up on the 
outskirts of Musina. 
 
¶5.  Hundreds of migrants sleep unsheltered in the showground 
field, vulnerable to heat exposure and heavy summer rains, 
with cardboard for mattresses, while others crawl under 
stadium benches.  Many are only a few feet from covered 
stalls used to house livestock during fairs, but the stalls 
are fenced off and the municipality has denied access. 
Sanitation facilities are limited to six portable latrines 
(all full and tipped over when we visited) and two taps for 
washing.  One daily meal is provided by IOM and church 
volunteers to the 300 in DHA's daily selected queue, while 
those outside in the field fend for themselves.  MSF had 
medical tents providing daytime basic care. 
 
-------------------------------- 
Gauntlet of Predators and Police 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  Migrants in transit are vulnerable to numerous risks and 
predations.  Nearly all lack identity documents to exit 
Zimbabwe's formal border post, so they commonly swim across 
the Limpopo River.  Some have drowned or lost children swept 
away in the current, and the river has now tested positive 
for cholera.  There are frequent and often horrific accounts 
of scams, robberies, attacks, and gang rape.  Each stage of 
the journey has its own profiteers, from smugglers paid for 
transport, to scalpers of queue slots, to gophers running 
errands for those in line, to hoarding food supplies to sell 
at inflated prices.  Women are reportedly trading sexual 
favors for these costs at alarming rates.  Cops collect 
bribes.  Kids are recruited to steal and commit crimes.  Lone 
children are highly vulnerable to traffickers ostensibly 
offering help. 
 
¶7.  The police continue to arrest and deport unregistered 
foreigners, reportedly at a rate of 800-1,200 a day.  SAPS 
have agreed to declare the showground as off limits for 
arrests, but the safe haven is limited to a 200-meter radius. 
 Two sources pointed out a gas station around the corner from 
the showground, where they said police cars wait to nab any 
undocumented Zimbabweans buying food from stores.  IOM has 
strongly protested the arrests of asylum seekers, which 
contravenes international protocols.  Dodging police drives 
migrants off main routes and into alleys, increasing their 
vulnerability to crime, for which they cannot seek police 
assistance for fear of detention.  Police action may 
potentially increase the risk of cholera's spread, if 
migrants disperse to avoid arrest. 
 
¶8.  Conditions are abysmal at the SAG's deportation center, 
jointly run by DHA (for policy and case determinations) and 
SAPS (for implementation of returns).  The one-room shed, 
divided in halves for men and women, is built of concrete 
block and metal roofing with no inside plumbing.  Detainees 
may request toilet visits by day, but at night they must use 
a corner of the room as a toilet and clean their own waste 
the next day.  The site reeks of urine in the summertime heat 
and is ideally suited for cholera transmission.  DHA agrees 
the site is unfit and is building a replacement.  Meanwhile, 
IOM says DHA has ceased meeting its duty to visit detainees 
to weed out wrongful arrests of permit holders, but SAPS were 
responsive to IOM requests to investigate such cases.  (Note: 
Some deportees are said to be border traders, who come to 
Musina to shop for supplies and then use deportation for 
QMusina to shop for supplies and then use deportation for 
return transport -- but conditions at the center make that 
claim hard to credit.) 
 
---------------------------- 
NGOs Scramble; Locals Endure 
---------------------------- 
 
¶9.  NGOs and church organizations are trying to assist the 
most vulnerable migrants, but with very limited resources. 
Shelter for unaccompanied children is constrained by a 
requirement that creches be registered with Social 
Development, a slow process.  SC has received DFID funding 
for a facility for 100 kids, but permits have been pending 
for a year.  There is currently only center for children, run 
by the United Reform Church.  The latter is adding an 
overnight shelter for boys (only) on the assumption that 
girls can more easily assimilate into private homes.  The 
next closest place of safety is 100 miles away, and like all 
centers in the province it is full.  The Catholic Church, and 
other faith based groups, has been distributing food and is 
 
PRETORIA 00002677  003 OF 004 
 
 
investigating provision of shelter.  For its part, IOM has 
proposed a Migrant Support Center, a daytime drop-in facility 
providing food, clean water, showers, and health care, which 
could help to coordinate all NGOs' activities.  IOM has also 
requested anti-trafficking support from its Pretoria head 
office. 
 
¶10.  Townspeople in Musina continue to show restraint and 
sympathy for the migrants, despite growing frustrations. 
Crime is rising, but Zimbabweans are more often victims than 
perpetrators.  There have been no xenophobic attacks or 
generalized violence against the migrants.  Police attribute 
this to family, clan, cultural, and business ties across the 
border, and the fact that many Musina residents are former 
immigrants.  Zimbabwe-plated pickup trucks overloaded with 
merchandise suggest Musina's retail economy is booming from 
the crisis next door; yet local consumers also complain about 
price inflation.  Some have grumbled over the loss of the 
showground, normally used for community recreation and 
festivities, and locals won a ban on migrants' cooking fires 
in this dry and windy setting.  Media reports of Zimbabweans 
as cholera carriers (neglecting to mention that transmission 
is now local) have fed resentment, yet many farmers have 
opened their homes to children, and local church charities 
are feeding migrants.  UNHCR said local businesses had 
offered to pay for weekend meals at the showgrounds, where 
food was given out only on weekdays. 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
Municipality in Denial; Hospital on Defensive 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶11.  Musina municipality seems to have little awareness of 
the growing humanitarian needs of the migrant population, and 
little sense of urgency about easing the pressures on local 
resources.  With a local population of only 40,000, municipal 
plans and budgets make no provision for an influx of tens of 
thousands of homeless Zimbabweans.  City officials failed to 
attend the latest weekly interagency meeting to address the 
situation of migrants.  Declaring an emergency (for which the 
threshold is believed to be 10,000 distressed persons, and 
for which Disaster Management reportedly has a ready plan) 
would invoke national support.  Instead, says SC, officials 
shrug and say of the migrants, "They'll move on."  NGOs 
suggest the city is wary of providing support lest it become 
a magnet for more migrants (ignoring that the exodus is now 
driven more by push factors in Zimbabwe than pull factors in 
South Africa).  There is high sensitivity to any assistance 
(like tents) that suggests permanent camps, counter to the 
national non-encampment policy.  UNHCR says they "battled" 
for the latrines at the showgrounds. 
 
¶12.  The municipal hospital is on the defensive, coping with 
its first cholera crisis yet incensed by MSF critiques and 
resentful of international appeals for intervention.  Its CEO 
denied entry to our CDC and DFID officers, on grounds that 
the WHO had been designated as a lead international agency 
and hence had exclusive access.  Hospital gates were closed, 
but through the fence we could see that not all nurses were 
gloved, and the one faucet apparently serving all patients 
and staff could easily be contaminated.  For its vocal 
criticisms of the cholera clinic's procedures, MSF had been 
ejected from the premises despite having the most medical 
assets, South African doctors, and cholera specialists 
Qassets, South African doctors, and cholera specialists 
available in Musina.  The hospital had reportedly rejected 
the use of cholera beds as "dehumanizing."  U.N. agencies 
said the hospital curtly rebuffed their offers of assistance 
as unwanted charity: "We are not beggars."  Most observers 
felt the CEO was feeling pressure over a pending visit from 
the Health Minister, likely to surface problems in Musina's 
response to the cholera outbreak. 
 
--------------------------------------- 
Next Step: Will Minister Clear Hurdles? 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶13.  The December 9 visit of the dynamic new Minister of 
Health, Barbara Hogan, is the hoped-for key to more effective 
responses to both cholera and humanitarian concerns at 
Musina.  Committees at provincial level have been tasked to 
draft 'matrix' action plans for discussion during the visit. 
At a minimum, IOs and NGOs anticipate that Hogan's 
intervention may unblock international assistance to the 
hospital.  More broadly, it could energize the municipality 
to lead its interagency cluster in improving protection for 
migrants -- adding DHA officers to eliminate backlogs, 
 
PRETORIA 00002677  004 OF 004 
 
 
fast-tracking registration of women's shelters and children's 
creches, approving a site for an IOM drop-in center, invoking 
'emergency' rules to summon national SAG resources, and 
halting arrests of migrants awaiting processing.  While we 
await the results of the Minister's visit, post is conferring 
internally and with external counterparts in Pretoria 
(including CDC, OFDA, DFID, UNHCR, and IOM), to be ready to 
respond with assistance and/or advocacy. 
BOST