Desperate Zimbabweans risk arrest abroad rather than starvation at home

Of all the extreme measures to which wretched Zimbabweans are resorting in their daily struggle against hunger, Norman Sithole's is probably the most extraordinary.

He has never owned a passport. Yet every other day he illegally jumps the border from Beitbridge on the Zimbabwe side to Musina in South Africa, taking an open route that guarantees he will be arrested either by troops from the South African National Defence Force or by the South African Police.

His sole aim is to stay a night at the police station in Musina, where he gets a free supper.

Mr Sithole has been doing this for the past four months. He speaks highly of the food in South African custody, where he gets meat, porridge and bread, unknown in Zimbabwean custody and increasingly scarce anywhere in the country. He says he has run out of options for survival in his homeland.

Yesterday, the President, Robert Mugabe, who has been blamed for the food crisis, flew back from the Franco-African summit in Paris to a country where most people have given up hope of a decent life.

Mr Sithole said: "I have no work. I can't afford anything. The truth is that, since moving to Beitbridge, I have only managed to eat decently from this police station."

The 60 or so Zimbabweans who sat with him awaiting deportation in the cells of Musina police station wore faces of unremitting misery as they related details of the plight that forced them to flee south.

The many who had children to feed said that despite being caught and facing deportation, they would not give up trying to enter South Africa illegally to find jobs. They do this despite the risks involved in crossing the border, including crocodiles in the Limpopo river and three, huge razor-wire fences – one electric – which run the 250km length of the border on the South African side of the river.

The captured immigrants have nicknamed the police trucks outside their cells waiting to deport them the "Air Zimbabwe fleet". Marco Sigauke, who has already been arrested and deported 12 times, said: "They move so fast in getting us back to Zimbabwe, but as soon as we are dropped there, we are already planning on our next moves to come back."

Mr Sigauke, 29, an elevator technician, said he gave up his job at home because hyperinflation (running at 208 per cent) had made his income worthless. "After paying rent, I was left with no money to buy food. I could not even afford underwear ... After I lost my wife last year to another guy who could buy her food, I decided I had no future in Zimbabwe and have been trying to get work here."

Robert Moyana, 38, had walked more than 750km (about 460 miles) from eastern Zimbabwe to Beitbridge before crossing into South Africa to look for work. As a labourer he could not earn enough to buy basic foodstuffs to feed his wife and four children. He dreamt of finding a job in Johannesburg and sending money home to feed his family, but was arrested after his first attempt.

Tony Mude, 19, trained in President Mugabe's youth militia during the violent campaign for re-election in March last year. But he ran away after witnessing brutalities at a camp in a small mining town in Midlands province. "We rounded up young girls whose parents supported the opposition, and raped them at night. Some girls were kept as sex slaves for the youth leaders. We were given dagga [cannabis] to master enough courage to beat up opponents. I couldn't stand it."

Rosemary Mavese, from southern Zimbabwe, was with her two children in the cell. She did not think the crisis in Zimbabwe was sustainable. "It will explode soon and I did not want to be caught with my children in the crossfire," she said.

People in Zimbabwe were trying to make money any way they could, she said. Stories abound of women sending their daughters into prostitution to pay for food.

In her village, Mrs Mavese said, hungry youths had robbed elderly people of the food packs delivered by aid agencies, leaving many to die of hunger. She said scores of women and children were succumbing to hunger and disease but their deaths were going unnoticed because no government officials had visited the remote area and journalists were being kept out. "People are dying like flies," she said. "We might end up eating each other because of lack of food." Indeed there have been unconfirmed reports of women in a rural part of Manicaland Province seen feeding on a corpse. Aid agencies say that eight million of Zimbabwe's 11.6 million population need immediate food aid. The organisations admit they are only covering a fraction of the affected worst areas because of lack of resources. "It is so bad that during one incident, villagers just seized food upon our arrival. They were too hungry to wait for an orderly distribution," one charity worker said.

Farming associations estimate that agricultural output will plunge by 60 per cent this year, after President Mugabe's land seizures, and the country is still suffering from drought.

Frustrated by the government's failure to provide seeds and tools to farm the land that has been seized from white farmers, many people are turning to gold panning on the rivers and in long-abandoned mine shafts to raise a bit of money for survival.

Despite the huge numbers of Zimbabweans arrested every day in Musina, the exodus continues. Asked how the police station was preparing for the next influx, Superintendent Clifford Steyn said: "How can we gear up? This is crisis management."