Gaborone Correspondent
Botswana's government is to bury 12 unclaimed corpses of illegal Zimbabwean immigrants in a mass grave as tension between the two neighbouring countries mounts. Francistown district commissioner Sylvia Muzila said yesterday that "hordes of unclaimed corpses of illegal immigrants are jamming the government mortuaries in the country and they will be buried in a mass grave". She said some of the corpses had not been claimed for more than a year. The number of bodies was later found to be 12, of which 11 were Zimbabweans. "The costs for dignified burial are too high and the best thing that we can do is to have a mass burial." Muzila said she had appealed to the Zimbabwean authorities to get relatives to come and claim the corpses, but the process was hampered by the fact that the illegal immigrants had not been identified. "Most of the illegal immigrants were admitted into the hospitals through different ailments and they are largely of sexually active age," she said, suggesting that some might have died of HIV/AIDS.
This comes at a time when diplomatic temperatures between the two countries have risen following Botswana's move to erect a 500km electric fence along their border. The Zimbabwean government claims Botswana is trying to erect a fence along "Gaza Strip" lines, targeted at Zimbabweans. However, Botswana's agriculture ministry was defiant yesterday, saying it was going ahead with the fence despite objections from its northern neighbours. "It is 500km and 2,4m high, starting from Tuli Circle to Zibanana and designed to control animal diseases," the acting director of veterinary services, Musa Fanakiso, said. "We are going ahead with the construction as planned."
Botswana has had two footand-mouth outbreaks in less than two
years in the northeastern part of the country and their source was traced to
Zimbabwe. The outbreak led to the closure of the northern abattoir, temporary
layoffs and the suspension of beef exports to European Union markets. Botswana
says it is experiencing its biggest immigration problem since independence in
1966 as thousands enter the country, fleeing economic meltdown in Zimbabwe. The
immigration department said it been overwhelmed by the problem and had joined
police and army patrols enlisted to fend off the influx. "We have recently
started joint border patrols," said the immigration officer
responsible for the northern region, Oliver Toteng. "We are repatriating at
least 2500 illegal Zimbabweans a month." The government has expressed
concern that the repatriation exercise is likely to cost more than $1m this
year.