Caught in a civil war, thousands of Mozambicans sought refuge in South Africa in the 1980s, writes Nicola Johnston
After nearly two decades in South Africa, a group of 250 former Mozambican refugees have recently been assisted to return to their former villages in Mozambique.
They became the first convoy of a group of 600 who crossed through Nwanetsi Gate in the Kruger National Park into Mozambique. This is a border concession which has been specially arranged between the Mpumalanga Department of Home Affairs and the Mozambican consulate in Nelspruit.
The refugees have been waiting to return to Mozambique since the inception last year of a pilot assisted-return project run by the University of the Witwatersrand’s refugee research programme (RRP).
Funds have now been secured to assist them to return with their few acquired possessions. Among this first group to be assisted is Chief Nyathi, one of the most powerful traditional leaders in the Gaza province.
He has been living as a refugee in South Africa for the past 15 years. With him he takes many followers who claim they cannot remain in South Africa if he returns to Mozambique.
For those returning, one of the main pull-factors is access to land, which is so restricted in the former homeland areas where they are currently residing. “Before we came to this country we had never experienced having to pay money for tomatoes, we always grew our own. Here things are difficult. You need money for everything,” says Nyathi.
Land is also important in terms of being where the ancestors are buried and therefore the place where people have a sense of belonging.
“We have been guests here for a long time now. It is time for us to go home. We’ve heard things are good that side now and the peace is lasting. They are crying for us to come home.”
Despite a United Nations High Commission on Refugees initiative for voluntary repatriation between 1994 and 1995, many refugees did not take up the offer of assistance, because of uncertainty about the situation in Mozambique.
Some who returned to Mozambique with this initiative came back to South Africa, because they were unable to support themselves in their own country.
A recent survey conducted by the RRP shows that between 20% and 40% of the refugee population are still interested in returning to Mozambique if they can get assistance with transport and some reintegration support.
The majority of them escaped to South Africa by walking through the Kruger National Park during the atrocities of civil war in their home country.
They were given shelter in the rural border communities of the Northern Province and Mpumalanga (former Gazankulu and Kangwane) during the 1980s.
The RRP estimates that there are about 220 000 Mozambican refugees still residing in the Northern Province and Mpumalanga, where they have been integrated into the local communities.
However, these communities are among the poorest of the poor. Their lack of formal status restricts their survival strategies. An average household of six must survive on about R120 a month.
In 1997/98 the RRP ran pilot assisted return projects which carefully monitored the reintegration of just less than 1 000 former Mozambican refugees.
The outcome of the project was generally positive. All of those assisted had remained in Mozambique. The majority got access to land and were more or less self-sufficient after the first harvest.
They had been assisted by relatives or friends in their former villages when they first arrived. Problems with access to water and health facilities remain, but 95% of the returnees interviewed were content at home.
“Life is good here. We were suffering that side. Look at me now : I am well and my store is full! The others must come and help us harvest!” said one of last year’s returnees.
Nicola Johnston is the head of the Wits University refugee research programme which is based in Acornhoek the Northern Province