440 unaccompanied minors intercepted by South Africa

Border officials in South Africa have stopped a group of over 440 children who were traveling from Zimbabwe without any adults with them.

The Border Management Authority (BMA) said that children under eight years old traveled on many buses on Saturday.

The BMA said they didn’t have their parents, guardians, or the necessary permission letters required by the law.

The reports say that the kids were visiting their parents who have jobs in South Africa.

The Border Management Authority checked 42 buses at the Beitbridge border post on social media platform X. They found 443 kids under age eight traveling without parents or guardians, and they were being taken to South Africa for bad reasons.

“We didn’t let them in and got the Zimbabwe officials to send them back to Zimbabwe. ”

More than a million people from Zimbabwe live and work in South Africa. It is thought that the kids were going to visit their parents for Christmas.

The bus drivers said that the children were going to sports events.

The leader of the Africa Diaspora Forum, who speaks for people from other countries living in South Africa, said that some of the 443 children were traveling with their grandparents.

Ngqabutho Mabhena said on his YouTube channel that the parents of these kids had called him and told him this.

“He said that is why they were allowed to pass through the border on the Zimbabwean side. ”

Mr Mabhena reminded Zimbabwean parents in South Africa to always accompany their children on buses and make sure they have the right paperwork.

He said, “Don’t give your kids to somebody you don’t know. We should be good parents and not make our kids feel uncomfortable. ”

South Africa is dealing with more people entering the country illegally through the border with Zimbabwe in the north.

Immigration is a big problem in South Africa’s politics.

The government is feeling pressure to control the number of people coming into the most developed country in sub-Saharan Africa because the border management is not working well.

In October, President Cyril Ramaphosa started a new border force to reduce the number of people entering South Africa illegally from Zimbabwe and other countries.