Lerato Mbhiza
A joint sting operation between the Border Management Authority (BMA), Home Affairs and the South African Police Service has stopped more than 40 buses travelling into South Africa through the Beitbridge Border Post carrying children who are alleged to have been trafficked.
This was revealed by Commissioner of the BMA Dr Michael Masiapato during a press briefing on Sunday.
“They were able to stop and search about 42 buses trying to enter the republic and out of that we found about 443 children under the age of eight that were in those buses without any parent or any guardian. Fairly, they were being trafficked into South Africa.
“We were able to take them out of those buses. We were then able to engage with the Zimbabwean officials and we handed them back to Zimbabwe for processing back into the country,” he said.
Masiapato also revealed some of the successes that the BMA were able to achieve in their work protecting the country’s borders.
These include the interception of more than 44 000 thousand individuals attempting to illegally enter South Africa.
“We got them arrested. We got them fingerprinted, we declared them undesirable, and we got them deported on the spot. Further, about 100 452 individuals overstayed in the country.
“We got the hit from our movement control system when they arrived at the ports. We then declared them undesirable, and we banned them from entering South Africa for the next five years.
“About 98 150 individuals were refused entry into the country for various reasons. Some of them were criminal elements who are listed on the Interpol list for having committed different types of crimes in other jurisdictions in the world,” he said.
Other successes Masiapato shared included the arrest of more than 44,000 people since April at various border posts for trying to enter the country illegally, the further arrest of 2,243 people found to have committed crimes near the ports of entry as well as the refusal to grant entry to more than 90,000 people for various reasons.
Outlining the festive season measures, Masiapato said they included some of the country’s busiest ports of entry, such as OR Tambo and Cape Town international airports, Beitbridge and Lebombo.
“During the development of our plan, these realities were taken into consideration, especially regarding the need for the deployment of additional human resources [at these ports].
“During the planning phase, we had intensive inter-jurisdictional engagements with our six immediate neighbours Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini and Botswana on the synchronisation of processes and other work modalities, such as specialised port operating and closing times during this period.”
He confirmed that while some ports operated 24/7, the Home Affairs Minister had approved a request to extend operating hours at other identified “critical ports” on certain days.
These included Grobler’s Bridge, Swartkopfontein, Kosi Bay, Mahamba and Jeppes Reef.
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