A camp stripped of dignity: the lived experience of undocumented migrants in Ethekwini

The smell of urine and faeces hangs heavy over the Drive-In immigration camp in Durban. Makeshift bathing stalls offer no privacy. Teenage girls are propositioned by strangers. Thousands sleep shoulder-to-shoulder on the cold ground.

For many undocumented migrants waiting to be repatriated before Tuesday’s June 30 deadline, this has become home.

Mary Khaluse, a Mozambique-born mother of three, sits on a thin blanket with her two teenage daughters beside her. Around them are an estimated 7,000 undocumented migrants, most of them Malawian, waiting to be processed.

“It’s like a refugee camp where people have no dignity,” she says quietly.

Mary fled an informal settlement in eThekwini two days ago after her family received threats amid growing tensions over undocumented migrants. She believed the government-run processing site would offer protection.

Instead, she found fear, uncertainty and hardship.

Her passport was destroyed in a house fire in 2010. After more than a decade in South Africa, she now faces repatriation without identity documents and with no clear plan for returning to Mozambique.

“I don’t know who I can turn to,” she says. “Home affairs told us they couldn’t move me to Musina. We were told to contact the consulate, but I don’t even know where to go. We are scared all the time.”

Her voice carries the exhaustion of a mother trying to shield her daughters in an overcrowded camp where privacy is almost non-existent and safety is never guaranteed.

The Drive-In site, together with a second processing centre in Pietermaritzburg, has become the centre of KwaZulu-Natal’s repatriation operation as authorities race to clear the camps before Tuesday.

Home affairs provincial manager Cyril Mncwabe said the department had now processed and repatriated more than 15,000 undocumented Malawian nationals, all of whom had been in South Africa without legal documentation.

“These are undocumented people. They don’t even have passports. We don’t know how they entered this country because they don’t have any documents,” Mncwabe said.

“When we say we document them, we are simply issuing them with an order to leave the country.”

He stressed that the operation was one of repatriation, not deportation.

“Repatriation is done by the government of that country coming to collect its own citizens. We have now gone beyond 15,000 people who have been processed and have left the country, and we are continuing with the same process to ensure that this site in eThekwini is closed.”

Authorities are also working to shut down the Pietermaritzburg processing site, where numbers continue to fluctuate as more undocumented migrants arrive.

“The challenge is that every minute new people arrive. These are a moving target, but our estimate is that there are more than 4,000 people there. We are also working on a process to take them to Musina. The instruction is that both sites must be closed. We don’t want a site in KwaZulu-Natal anymore.”

Mncwabe said only Malawian nationals remained at the two processing centres. A smaller camp housing Zambian nationals at a Durban church had already been cleared after those migrants were assisted to return home. Nothing can be done for Mary, he tells Sunday Times.

He said the repatriation drive had relied on cooperation between governments, with Malawi initially providing buses before the South African government stepped in. The eThekwini municipality has also committed additional transport.

“If it means we go throughout the night to clear this site, we will do so.”

Mncwabe acknowledged the toll the operation had taken on home affairs officials.

We cannot even take a bath because these bathing cubicles are out in the open. We are exposed. I have not showered since yesterday. It’s so packed that we have very little space to sleep.

—   Mary Khaluse, a Mozambique-born mother of three

“We have been here for almost two weeks dealing with this solution. You can imagine the effort that has to be put in place by immigration officers to register these people and facilitate their documentation. The fatigue is starting to creep in.”

But behind the logistics of buses and paperwork lies a growing humanitarian crisis.

Women at the camp complain that men are boarding buses first while mothers and children are left waiting.

“Men are the ones taking the buses and women are left on the sidelines,” one woman said.

Mncwabe rejected claims of unfair treatment, saying buses leave on a first-come, first-served basis and that women with babies had been prioritised during the initial phase of the operation.

The concerns extend beyond transport.

He claims there had been reports of at least two or three women giving birth at the camp. One was transferred to hospital before delivery, while another reportedly gave birth after arriving at the site.

For mothers and newborns, the conditions are especially alarming.

“We cannot even take a bath because these bathing cubicles are out in the open,” Mary says. “We are exposed. I have not showered since yesterday. It’s so packed that we have very little space to sleep.”

She says there is little separation between men and women, leaving many mothers worried about the safety of their daughters.

Acting KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Maj-Gen Phumelele Makoba said police had deployed maximum resources at identified hotspots and around the processing centres to maintain order during both the repatriation process and any demonstrations linked to Tuesday’s deadline.

Even so, the sheer number of people arriving at the site in recent days has stretched the operation.

Mary says she initially waited for assistance from the Mozambican government, believing buses would be arranged for citizens returning home.

“They called us and told us to come here, but when we got here we found only Malawians,” she says. “We were told there would be buses from Mozambique, but there are none. How are we going to get help?”

Her experience illustrates the uncertainty facing migrants caught between an overstretched South African system and foreign missions struggling to organise repatriation.

Home affairs insists safeguards are in place, including a medical tent, criminal screening and coordination with municipalities and foreign governments.

“There is a medical tent and those who need hospital care are transferred,” Mncwabe said.

For women worried about their children’s safety and dignity, those assurances offer little comfort.

As Tuesday’s June 30 deadline approaches, Mary is preparing to leave the country she has called home for more than a decade.

“I’ve been in South Africa for so long,” she says. “I was able to hustle for work and support my family and the family back home. I am so sad that I am leaving South Africa.”