OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bulawayo | Sunday 7.00pm.
SOUTH African police have found the container truck in which 18 Zimbabweans died of suffocation in Botswana on Tuesday, the Matabeleland North Province police commander, Alfred Musengi, said on Sunday.
Musengi said the truck, believed to be South African, was found abandoned in that country. He added that police from Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa have since launched a joint operation to locate the missing driver together with his accomplices in the cross-border syndicate.
“We now have particulars of both the driver and the company to which the truck belongs and we hope that this will help us net this syndicate of illegal crossers,” he said.
Meanwhile, police here have launched a massive manhunt for other members of the syndicate who have gone underground. One of the suspected members of the syndicate turned up at the police station on Saturday and is helping police with investigations.
The man, who responded to a police note summoning him to the homicide department at Bulawayo, is believed to be one of the money collectors in the syndicate where people pay up to $Z1200 (about $US40) to be transported to South Africa illegally.
Police are also awaiting the return from South Africa of a legal cross-border commuter driver believed to have once been a member of the syndicate. — PANA