A group of 32 undocumented Zimbabweans, including young children and infants, were detained on Thursday night after the bus they were travelling in was stopped on the N1 near Bloemfontein in South Africa’s Free State Province.
The stop formed part of heightened Easter weekend road safety operations by local authorities.
Officials said the bus was travelling to Cape Town when it was pulled over at a roadblock.
Free State MEC for Community Safety, Roads and Transport, Jabu Mbalula, confirmed that some of those detained were babies as young as four months old.
Authorities also suspect possible human trafficking. Some of the adults were travelling with children who had different surnames, while others had valid passports, but their children had no documentation.
Concerns have been raised over why the bus was only intercepted in the Free State after passing through two provinces from the Beitbridge border post.
Mbalula said there is a need to strengthen coordination between provinces to improve enforcement.
“What we have discovered is that these buses, when they cross at our border gates, are compliant.
“But because we interviewed the travellers themselves who were passengers in the bus, they told us—some of them said they were picked up in Louis Trichardt, some said they were picked up somewhere in Johannesburg.
“Now you can see when they pass at the border gate, when they are searched or looked at, everybody’s able to produce a legitimate travelling document. But along the way, people get picked up”, explained Mbalula.
He added that the driver was not arrested, as he was cooperative and had both a valid driver’s licence and a public driving permit.
