Police have found the decomposing bodies of 13 people who drowned in the Limpopo River while apparently trying to cross from Zimbabwe into neighbouring South Africa earlier this year, state media reported on Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear if those found were part of a larger group of up to 60 people who were reported to have drowned in the flood waters of the Limpopo in January.
”We are working hand-in-hand with our South African counterparts to recover the bodies of those who drowned during the rainy season,” a police officer in Zimbabwe’s southern Beitbridge district told the state-controlled The Herald.
He said eight of the bodies — found when water levels dropped last week — had been identified as Zimbabweans. The five others could be Zimbabweans or Mozambicans or other nationals trying to reach South Africa via Zimbabwe, according to the report.
The bodies have been taken to a mortuary in South Africa’s border town of Musina.
South Africa, with its booming economy and strong currency is the destination of choice for many people in the region. It is particularly appealing to Zimbabweans trying to escape the country’s worst economic crisis, marked by high unemployment and inflation of more than 1 000%.
In January this year, local reports said as many as 60 Zimbabweans could have drowned while trying to cross the crocodile-infested Limpopo near Dite, 60km east of the Beitbridge border post, when the river was still in flood.
Officials in South Africa said at the time they knew nothing of the incident.
Reports say more than 97 000 illegal Zimbabwean immigrants were deported from South Africa last year. — Sapa-dpa