News24 | 74 Zimbabweans flee xenophobia in Mossel Bay in bus laid on by home country

After five days of police protection at the Mossel Bay Municipality Hall in the Western Cape, Primrose Sibanda finally made it to Zimbabwe unscathed amid xenophobic attacks.

She is among the 74 Zimbabweans, comprising 49 adults and 25 children, repatriated to Zimbabwe by that country’s government.

“It was a horrible two weeks of uncertainty,” she told News24.

Sibanda recounted how she was ordered to leave her shack in Giyani, an informal settlement within KwaNonqaba, Mossel Bay.

This is the same neighbourhood where two Mozambican nationals were killed in a xenophobic attack less than two weeks ago.

Sibanda said: “A mob with some people I could identify in the community ordered us to leave. Out of fear, I gathered the few clothing items I could get my hands on.

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“I left my belongings, which I think they helped themselves to before setting the shack alight.”

Sibanda, a domestic worker, was in the country legally with a Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP), but that didn’t help.

“They didn’t want to see or hear anything; they knew I was Zimbabwean, and that was enough for them to tell me to leave because I was one of those who are ‘taking their jobs,’” she said.

ZEP permits were given an 18-month extension and are set to expire on 28 May next year.

Sibanda got wind that some foreigners fleeing attacks were being taken in at Mossel Bay Municipality Hall, which was the closest and safest place she could go.

“The police guard the hall, but we could hear the thugs moving around to attack people in nearby areas. That was traumatic for us adults; you can imagine what the children felt,” she said.

On the same bus that arrived in Beitbridge, some had spent as much as two weeks hiding in the community hall.

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Elijah Chikwenya came with his wife, Molly, and two children, both under the age of 10. Chikwenya is a truck driver.

He’s grateful that they are alive and back in Zimbabwe. The rest, he said, will fall into place eventually.

“I managed to seek refuge with my wife and two children, a boy and a girl. I don’t know how long we would have been safe had the Zimbabwean government not facilitated our departure,” he said.

Chikwenya arrived in the Western Cape in 2022, soon after the relaxation of the strict Covid-19 lockdowns and curfews to start afresh. He did not have the required permits to live and work in the country.

“I was in Durban before the Covid-19 pandemic. I relocated soon