MALANDZA (30:12.2024): Over 200 Mozambique refugees fled into Eswatini yesterday alone, raising heightened alarm of possible new floods from the neighbouring country’s post elections violence.
“Yesterday alone, we registered 201 refugees at the Malindza Reception Centre,” declared Ministry of Home Affairs spokesman, Mlandvo Dlamini who confirmed this was a very significant increase on the 528 refugees who have been arriving at the centre since the 6 October 2024 disputed general elections.
“We are party to international agreements committing us to accept, host and take care of refugees and work with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and our implementing partner, World Vision”.
Dlamini said the refugee centre is now overflowing. “It is full. We are struggling to accommodate any new tents.”
“Malindza is not really a refugee camp but a reception centre where refugees are accommodated temporarily until they are properly processed. Right now it has exceeded its carrying capacity. Fortunately, this is not the first time we have had floods of refugees. We are now preparing the Ndzevane Refugee centre which should be ready by end of week,” he said. At its peak in around 1978, Malindza accommodated 8,000 Mozambicans fleeing the civil war between Frelimo and Renamo.
The Ndzevane Refugee camp is about 40 km south of Big Bend and accommodated about 7,000 refugees from the Matsenjwa and Mngomezulu clans who fled apartheid South Africa in the 1978. It was managed on behalf of the UNHCR by CARITAS and the Lutheran Development Fund. They were joined by more Mozambicans and by the mid-1980s Swaziland hosted some 20,000 refugees. These refugees were repatriated at the collapse of apartheid and peace in Mozambique.
Last week, over 3000 prisoners broke out of Machava Maximum security jail west of Matola. Some are feared to be armed and dangerous, raising concerns that some of them would find their way into Eswatini. However, Dlamini said the ministry conducts are background checks and security clearance on all people that claim refugee status to ensure the safety of the country.
Dlamini said the refugees arrive in different ways. Some come through the border ports at Mhlumeni and Lomahasha and declare their status to immigration officials, and from there are moved to the refugee reception centre. Others depending on their circumstances simply jump the border fence and when inside the country approach the police and ask for refugee status.
Implications on Eswatini
The Mozambique situation has other significant implications on the Kingdom. It’s port city of Maputo is the gateway for exports from both Eswatini and South Africa. Waves of post elections violence at the border town of Ressano Garcia regularly sends panic resulting in closure of the Lebombo-Ressano Garcia border with the Maputo Corridor. The multi-national roadway linking Mozambique with South African cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria as well as the mining regions that absorbs hundreds of thousands of Mozambique workers, continues through Botswana and ends in Namibia’s Walvis Bay. This busy border regularly closes whenever violence flares – leaving traffic stranded on the road, sometimes for days. South African Border authorities say the Lebombo Border handles 2000 trucks a day, and when it closes, bleeds the South African economy billions of Rand a day.
Increasingly travellers blocked from the Lebombo Border divert to Eswatini borders as an alternative. This increases pressure on the Ngwenya, but especially on the Mananga border about 30 km south of Lebombo (Komatipoort).
Dlamini said they have been holding discussions with their South African counterparts in the Border Management Agency to share notes about how they can better manager the border migration issues flowing out of the Mozambique situation.
“We are ready to cope with any new demands from the overflow of people crossing through. We will add extra staff and are even ready to move mobile offices to Mananga to manage increased traffic.
Mondlane ‘has second thoughts’
Meanwhile, self-exiled Mozambican presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane is reported having second thoughts about declaring himself president of the country in mid-January.
Mondlane insists that he is the true winner of the 9 October presidential election, although he has not produced the polling station results sheets (“editais”) that would prove his case.
Until Thursday, he has insisted that he will take office as the next president in Maputo, on 15 January.
Now, however, according to the Mozambique News Agency AIM, he has added a condition. In his latest broadcast to his followers, transmitted via his Facebook page, he has demanded that his followers cease the orgy of looting and destruction that has gripped the country since the announcement of the definitive election results.
Mondlane seems to have recognised that the footage of rioters pillaging supermarkets is doing his cause no good at all.
He warned that if the looting continues, then he will not take office on 15 January. He asked how it would be possible to accept the post of President in the midst “of ruins and chaos”.
He claimed that his struggle is “in defence of the public good and the defence of shops and companies”.
“I’m not going to take office while we are destroying everything”, he exclaimed. “How will I arrive at the site of the inauguration ceremony? Am I to take office in the midst of rubble?”
Mondlane urged the public to defend companies, shops and public institutions. “We are not here to destroy the shops and companies of our neighbours”, he declared. “We want a change in the country, but without attacking others who are also suffering”.
This is Mondlane’s strongest appeal against looting to date – but his previous appeals had no effect, and it is unlikely that this one will halt the gangs of young men who say they follow Mondlane but frequently ignore his instructions.
The looting gives Mondlane an excuse to call off his bid for presidential power. Declaring himself the new head of state would require support from the defence and security forces that he does not have.
Mondlane was speaking from an undisclosed location believed to be somewhere in Europe. The only European country where he is known to have political support is Portugal.
On a visit to Lisbon earlier in the year he was warmly welcomed by the far-right party, Chega, which is openly enthusiastic for the colonial-fascist regime overthrown in April 1974.
jm/today/30.12.2024
