The Zimbabwean government has forcibly ejected 70 DR Congo refugees and returned them to their country after it was discovered they had looted food and medical supplies donated by donor agencies.
A report released by a human rights agency in the country on Wednesday, noted the refugees who were hosted at the Tongogara refugee camp, were “accused of looting a food supply warehouse” and were initially arrested in August 2021.
“The government forcibly returned approximately 70 of these refugees to the DRC in violation of international law according to an international organisation,” the report says.
“DRC authorities rejected approximately 15 of these refugees, whom the government then placed in detention facilities in Harare,” it added.
“As of November last year, the Tongogara Refugee Camp hosted 15,797 refugees and asylum seekers, despite the facility being designed to host 3,000 refugees.
“The majority of refugees are from the DRC representing 76 percent of the bulk, followed by Mozambique at 11 percent, Burundi at six percent and Rwanda five percent,” another report in the media stated.
The United Nations Refugees agency which frowned at the eviction of the Congolese refugees, said before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, an estimated 100 refugees and asylum seekers arrived at the camp every month, but the report however, said they faced abuse from security forces in Zimbabwe.
“Security forces routinely detained migrants, who lacked identification documents or permits to be in the country and held them in prisons with convicted criminals
“This prolonged detention was common and migrants complained of mistreatment by other prisoners and poor amenities at the facilities,” the report said.