GABORONE, 13 March (IRIN) - Zimbabweans trooping across the border looking for jobs in Botswana face hardship, but would rather stay than return to face the worsening economic crunch at home.

That is a problem for an increasing number of Motswana, who believe Zimbabweans have worn out their welcome. Xenophobia is being stoked by the daily arrival of economic migrants, and the popular belief that Zimbabweans are responsible for increased crime.

"Coming up with the exact number of Zimbabweans now living here is impossible because a sizeable amount of them are illegal immigrants who use undesignated crossing points," an immigration official, who asked for anonymity, told IRIN.

He alleged that more than a thousand Zimbabweans trudged through the Ramokgwebana border post daily. Many fibbed on their entry forms, getting a 90-day entry visa by claiming they were visiting relatives or friends. "It is common knowledge that the majority of the people would be coming to look for jobs," said the official.

Precious Kunonga, 26, a single mother, has been in Botswana dodging the authorities for almost a year, trying to make enough money to put her eight-year-old son through school and look after her elderly parents.

At home she had been impressed by the stories spun by friends in Botswana, who boasted about how much easier it was to earn a living. When she turned up at the main bus station in the capital, Gaborone, to try her luck, no one was there to greet her. Three nights spent sleeping at the terminus gave her a crash course in urban survival.

The first lesson was how to make some money as an undocumented migrant. Early each morning Kunonga goes to Broadhurst shopping mall, an unofficial employment exchange in Gaborone, and waits with scores of other Zimbabweans to be hired to wash clothes, clean houses and tend gardens - the chores that locals prefer not to do.

"When I arrived here, money was easier to get, but since more and more Zimbabweans are coming here on a daily basis, competition is getting increasingly stiff. Worse still, we are subjected to ridicule by the locals, who always shout out that we should return to Zimbabwe and fix our problems from there," said Kunonga.

Since 2000, when Zimbabwe's economic problems took a turn for the worse, millions have left the country. The skilled and the unskilled are all looking for a way to get ahead, but also to help family at home, who are struggling with an annual inflation rate close to 1,700 and unemployment of 80 percent.

On a good day, Kunonga can take home 60 pula (US$10) but she can also go for weeks without work, "and that means then I hardly have anything to buy food with".

To save as much as she can, she shares a small room without electricity with four other Zimbabwean women. Between them they pay US$8 per month; the landlord has already told them he is going to double the rent at beginning of April.

Living crammed together has its own problems: the roommates quarrel over whose turn it is to buy groceries, accuse each other of stealing or borrowing without asking. Making things even nastier, one of the women has turned to sex work and brings men home.

And then there are the police: Kunonga has to keep her wits about her to avoid being picked up and fined P50 for loitering, or worse still, repatriated. "If they discover that your papers are not in order, that is the end for you because you instantly get deported," she said.

Despite all the hardships, suffering and embarrassment, the lure that keeps Kunonga in Botswana is that in a good month she can earn US$115. When that's converted on the parallel market in Zimbabwe, it's more than the salary of a senior magistrate.

Migrating from Zimbabwe is not only the prerogative of the young. Catherine Zindoga, 52, is also hustling a living in Gaborone. "I was forced to come to Botswana by the fact that I have to fend for four children, who were left in my custody by my two daughters, both of whom died of AIDS," she told IRIN.

Her visa has long since expired, a situation she says her employer is taking advantage of. "I have not been given time to rest in the last seven months and I sometimes go for months without receiving my salary," said Zindoga. She has not only worked long hours, but has sometimes been taunted by her employer's children as being "mukwerekwere", a derisive term for foreigner.

The South African Migration Project of the University of the Witwatersrand quoted Botswana officials as saying the government had rounded up and deported 6,000 Zimbabweans in the first week of October 2006.

Zimbabwean-run businesses, such as bus and truck operators, funeral parlours, vehicle repair shops and sawmills, have mushroomed in the northern city of Francistown and the satellite towns of Tati and Tonota to the south, all near Botswana's border with Zimbabwe.

But the popular perception is that Zimbabweans are linked to criminality. In 2004 - during which around 72,112 Zimbabweans were deported - the Botswana government issued a statement accusing "illegal Zimbabwean immigrants [of involvement] in criminal activities, including very serious crimes".

Kunonga and Zidonga, however, see themselves as victims, forced to leave home to support their families, living in a country where they are generally unwelcome, and blame an economy that has deteriorated from being one of the engines of the region to a liability to its neighbours.

fm/oa/he

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