SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 348 for 1 - 7 September 2007
JOHANNESBURG, 7 September 2007 (IRIN) - CONTENTS:
SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE: Report dismisses "human tsunami of migrants" claim
ZIMBABWE: Child migrants seek a better life in South Africa
BOTSWANA: IOM to open centre for undocumented Zim migrants
ZAMBIA: Mental illness sufferers shunned and isolated
ZAMBIA-ZIMBABWE: The Tonga: left high and dry
MALAWI: Torn between the lure and danger of uranium
ZIMBABWE: Youth militia camps may close
SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE: Report dismisses "human tsunami of migrants" claim
It is being called the largest displacement of people outside of a war zone since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but a new report is dismissing claims of a 'human tsunami' of undocumented Zimbabwean migrants arriving in South Africa as an "exaggeration".
The report, 'Fact or Fiction? Examining cross-border migration into South Africa', by the Forced Migration Studies Programme at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand and the Musina Legal Advice Office, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) advocating the rights of migrants, which operates on the Zimbabwean/South African border, said, "recent statements by officials exaggerated the numbers of Zimbabweans moving across the border into South Africa or already in the country."
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ZIMBABWE: Child migrants seek a better life in South Africa
He is only a teenager, but he is already a seasoned border jumper. Dressed in a torn t-shirt and blue work trousers, Robert, 16, (not his real name) told IRIN he had crossed the border from Zimbabwe four times since he first decided to come to South Africa in January this year.
He was arrested and deported for the first time late last month, but returned to the South African border town of Musina, in Limpopo Province, within a day and said he would only stay in Zimbabwe "when I have three things: money, food and schooling".
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BOTSWANA: IOM to open centre for undocumented Zim migrants
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is establishing a second reception centre in Zimbabwe to provide a 'soft landing' for undocumented Zimbabwean migrants being deported from neighbouring countries.
Last year 38,000 Zimbabweans were repatriated from Botswana to Zimbabwe. Earlier this year President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF government requested the IOM to assist in setting up the country's second reception centre, in the Matabeleland town of Plumtree near the Botswana border, to assist undocumented Zimbabwean migrants being repatriated from Botswana.
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ZAMBIA: Mental illness sufferers shunned and isolated
Rising rates of mental and emotional illness in Zambia are being met with growing levels of stigma and discrimination, with sufferers often isolated by their communities.
Nora Mweemba, a health information promotion officer for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Zambia, told IRIN, "Mental health problems are on the increase among the population in Zambia, mostly because of the socio-economic difficulties that exist in this country - HIV/AIDS, poverty, joblessness - they all precipitate mental problems."
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ZAMBIA-ZIMBABWE: The Tonga: left high and dry
Fifty years after the Tonga people were forcibly removed from the Zambezi Valley to make way for the Kariba Dam between southern Zambia and northwestern Zimbabwe, the community is still trying to find its feet.
Over the past decade a number of development programmes have been initiated to improve the Tonga people's lives, after their eviction by the former governments of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to make way for the hydroelectric power project that created Lake Kariba.
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MALAWI: Torn between the lure and danger of uranium
A project to mine uranium in northern Malawi next year promises to spur economic development in the area, but fears of serious health hazards associated with the radioactive element have aroused the country's civil society.
The Malawian government granted a mining licence in April 2007 to Paladin Africa Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Australian company, Paladin Resources Ltd, to develop the Kayelekera uranium deposit, 40km west of the town of Karonga on the shore of Lake Malawi.
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ZIMBABWE: Youth militia camps may close
The acute shortages being experienced in Zimbabwe could lead to the closure of the ZANU-PF government's youth militia training camps, established in 2001 to instil the values of national identity, unity, patriotism and self-reliance.
The Youth, Gender and Women's Affairs parliamentary portfolio committee has recommended that National Youth Service Centres be closed until economic conditions improve because their ablution and accommodation facilities were near collapse and trainees were not being provided with adequate supplies of food, while their trainers were not receiving regular remuneration.
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Theme(s): (IRIN) Environment, (IRIN) Health & Nutrition, (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs
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[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] |
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