The Department of Home Affairs says at least 50 buses are expected to arrive at the Musina repatriation centre to help clear a growing backlog as thousands of Zimbabwean and Malawian nationals wait to return home.
The move comes as anti-migrant organisations continue to call for undocumented immigrants to leave South Africa.
Some foreign nationals have also been deported or voluntarily repatriated amid rising anti-migrant tensions and protests.
The repatriation and deportation process is taking place at the Beitbridge Port of Entry in Musina following the closure of the Durban Repatriation Centre.
KZN Home Affairs official Cyril Mncwabe said the Musina site had been established as the country’s official repatriation centre.
“We are currently here at the Musina repatriation site. This is a formal structure that has been put in place by the government of South Africa to ensure that we do the repatriation.”
He said the facility was created after large numbers of people had been gathering at the Durban Showgrounds.
“As you would know, everybody was arriving at the showgrounds. We have now put structures in place here to facilitate the process. We are busy processing people as they arrive, and most of them come from different provinces to this official repatriation centre,” he told eNCA.
Mncwabe said officials are currently processing Mozambican, Zimbabwean and Malawian nationals.
“Those are the predominant countries that we are trying to assist here.”
He said 2,068 people were processed on Friday.
“We hope that today the numbers will increase because the challenge has been the availability of buses to take people out of the country.”
Home Affairs expects at least 50 buses to arrive at the site to reduce the growing backlog.
“We are expecting not less than 50 buses to be on site today while processing continues.”
Mncwabe acknowledged that the growing number of arrivals was placing pressure on officials.
“Now that this is the official repatriation centre, all the provinces are sending people here.”
He said about 100 Home Affairs officials had been deployed to process arrivals and estimated operations could continue for another month, depending on the number of people still expected.
“People continue to arrive because they fear for their lives or because of developments taking place in the communities where they have been living.”
Earlier this week, Border Management Authority (BMA) Acting Commissioner Maj Gen David Chilembe said more than 35,000 foreign nationals had left South Africa through the Beitbridge Border Post since the government intensified its migration management programme.
Providing an update on Thursday, Chilembe said authorities were managing deportations, voluntary repatriations and the normal movement of people and goods through the border.
“We are today here at Beitbridge, which is the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe, where we are busy with three processes: deportations, voluntary repatriation and the normal facilitation of the movement of people and goods.”
“Since we started implementing the measures announced by the President, we have dealt with more than 35,000 people who have been repatriated and deported through this border post.”
Chilembe said authorities processed about 2,400 people on Wednesday, including approximately 1,700 Malawian nationals and 700 Zimbabweans.
He said one of the main challenges was coordinating the movement of Malawian nationals through Zimbabwe.
“In order for us to facilitate Malawians, we need the Malawian authorities to take over the process from us so they can be facilitated through Zimbabwe.”
“That is a challenge that we’re currently facing because the Malawian authorities appear to be overwhelmed by the high numbers.”
Chilembe said buses had already been arranged, with more expected to arrive.
“We’re still waiting for a number of buses because we are receiving updates on how many buses are on their way. We are ready, but you can see the border post itself is not busy; it is only the repatriation process that we are dealing with.”
He said authorities were also screening individuals through fingerprint verification to identify anyone attempting to evade criminal investigations.
“The other issue is crime. That’s why we’re going through the fingerprint process, so if we find somebody trying to evade the process by entering the repatriation system, we can identify them and deal with them.”
Chilembe added that authorities are introducing a new holding area for Malawian and Zimbabwean nationals passing through the port to streamline processing.
