UK sends 11,000 Mugabe refugees back

by Paul Conneally | July 6, 2008 at 04:25 am

222 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

Britain is asking for tougher sanctions against Mugabe's corrupt rule in Zimbabwe but at the same time sending back thousands of refugees to who knows what imprisonment and torture. These are failed asylum seekers but the truth is that if they were not persecuted before fleeing to Britain the very fact that they did flee will see them targeted on forced return to Zimbabwe.

Attempts by Gordon Brown to use a meeting of G8 leaders this week to campaign for tougher action against Zimbabwe are in danger of being undermined by claims that Britain is forcing as many as 11,000 Zimbabweans seeking refuge here to make a stark choice between destitution or returning home to possible torture or death. Letters obtained by The Observer show that the Home Office continues to order failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers to return home in the face of mounting violence.

This at the same time that up to 400 people a day risk crossing crocodile infested rivers to escape Mugabe's reign of terror.

Ten days after President Robert Mugabe re-elected himself, there has been a huge surge in the number of impoverished Zimbabweans fleeing their country. Farmers and human traffickers have confirmed that hundreds are braving the crocodile-infested Limpopo river daily and cutting through three razor-wire fences that spanning 200km on the South African side.

'For the Beit Bridge area alone we're now talking of 400 people every 24 hours,' said Ronnie, a former border fence repairer who turned to human trafficking last year. 'For myself, I barely have time to bring one group over and another 30 people are waiting for me on the Zimbabwean side.' The standard charge for each 'jumper' is 40 rands (£2.50).