JOHANNESBURG, 9 September 2008 (IRIN) - A new immigration centre located a few minutes from the South Africa-Zimbabwe border could help legalise tens of thousands of asylum seekers and ease a government backlog in the hundreds of thousands.

The new Refugee Reception Centre in Mussina, South Africa - 10km south of Beitbridge in Zimbabwe, the busiest border crossing between the two countries – has registered about 3,600 asylum seekers in less than two months for the temporary residence permits they will need to remain legal while their cases are decided, according to Department of Home Affairs spokesperson Sam Moremi.

At the current rate, the Mussina centre will process about 10 percent of South Africa's yearly intake of asylum seekers in the next 12 months, but it will take more than that to relieve the pressure on Home Affairs official bogged down by a backlog of more than 100,000 applications, according to 2006 figures quoted by then acting director-general of immigration, Gcinumzi Ntlakana.

Roughly 10 percent of asylum seekers are Zimbabweans; 17,665 of them applied for asylum in 2007, making them the largest group of new applicants, said the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (CoRMSA).

Zimbabweans continue to cross the border as the economic and political turmoil in their country deepens, but Moremi said the centre was doing well, processing roughly 300 temporary residence permits a day.

Yet many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in the area said more needs to be done to assist people seeking refugee status, some of who are sleeping outside while awaiting their permits.

"Normally people who come from Zimbabwe are moneyless because of the situation there," said Forster Kwangwari, who represents the NGO, Concern Zimbabwe. "The people don't have accommodation but they are waiting for their papers and sleep almost everywhere around town."

Médecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) has stepped in, offering medical attention at mobile clinics. Dust in the air from the dry start to South Africa's summer has affected many of those sleeping in the open, causing respiratory infections, said MSF project coordinator Alexis Moens.

Representatives from Concern Zimbabwe and MSF said they would like to see a network of temporary shelters to house those awaiting documentation, but attempts at housing the foreigners have been problematic.

Musina spokesperson Wilson Dzebu said the municipality was forced to close down one such shelter at the local Anglican Church after inspectors discovered about 600 people sleeping in and around the church were sharing a single toilet.

Kwangwari said the Anglican and Catholic churches were now both running feeding schemes, catering to a total of about 600 people, but he expected this to double as word spread.

Obstacles like these may dissuade people already wary of entering South Africa formally. A recent CoRMSA study found that many Zimbabweans were entering the country informally, thus placing potentially legitimate asylum-seekers at risk of violence, exploitation and unnecessary deportation.

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