By -At least 89 000 Zimbabweans have been arrested and deported from South Africa for illegally staying in that country.

Former ZCTu president Peter Mutasa, said most of the victims either entered or stayed in that country without proper documentation.

He said this development could have been avoided if the region had listened to Zimbabwe labour unions, civic society groups and human rights activists’ warnings about Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis.

Thousands of Zimbabweans flock into neighbouring South Africa and Botswana in search of jobs and better lives.

Mutasa said:
We have been talking about these issues as labour, as human rights activists that SADC and AU have to take a progressive and practical position on Zimbabwe crisis, we have got a crisis. SADC has to resolve this crisis before it degenerates and now it has degenerated. So SADC, South Africa and other Africa countries have to agree that Zimbabwe has got crisis.
This problem has now caused humanitarian crisis it is not enough for South Africans to just push Zimbabweans back where they cannot get livelihoods and to where they can starve, 61 percent in here are food insecure so all those people are looking for food.
Political analyst Wurayayi Zembe says undocumented Zimbabweans flocking into South Africa is confirmation that the Emmerson Mnangagwa government has failed. He said:
That’s a symptom of the failure to govern Zanu PF government in Zimbabwe, it has been failing to provide Zimbabweans with jobs. Jobs are a basic need of Zimbabweans so that they can earn their legitimate lives.
The Zimbabwe government has remained mum over this latest mass exodus of citizens.
More: eNCA