Joint Drive to Welcome Thousands of Zimbabwean Returnees Home

Honourable Daniel Garwe, Minister of Local Government and Public Works, cut through the numbers with a simple, human message at Beitbridge. This crisis is not about statistics, it is about families coming home – and about a nation choosing to welcome, protect and reintegrate them together.

“The arrival at Beitbridge is not the end,” he said. “It is the point to start from. Let us receive our brothers and sisters. These are our relatives. They can never be looked at as a burden. Let us open our arms and welcome them, reintegrate them in our communities.”

By mid-morning, buses filled much of the Beitbridge Reception Centre – some pulling in with new arrivals, others loading screened returnees for the final leg of their journey home.

Children pressed their faces to the windows, clutching school satchels that hold more memories than books. Mothers steadied sleeping infants on their backs and laps. Young men stared straight ahead, minds already racing toward the question that now shapes every waking moment: “What next?”

For tens of thousands of Zimbabweans forced to leave South Africa in recent weeks, this dusty border town has become the threshold between loss and possibility. Here, more than 100,000 returnees are turning back into neighbours and kin – lives abruptly upended, but not abandoned.

On 16 July 2026, under a sharp winter sun, senior Government officials led by Honourable Minister Garwe stood alongside UN Resident Coordinator Dr. Rosemary Kalapurakal and UN agencies, civil society, faith leaders, philanthropists, private sector representatives and local volunteers. Their shared message was that this response is about dignity, and it is about doing it together.

“For weeks I have been receiving reports and attending meetings on the situation affecting Zimbabwean returnees,” Dr. Kalapurakal said. “But here in Beitbridge, the trends and numbers take on a very different meaning. They become real people: mothers carrying children, young people worried about opportunity, families returning home with a few bags and many uncertainties about what comes next.”

One such mother arrived days earlier with three children and a single suitcase. She left Zimbabwe 15 years ago for Johannesburg in search of greener pastures. Today she stands back on home soil with no job, no home of her own and no guarantee her children will return to school this term.

Yet she did not step into an empty yard.

Civil servants guided her through registration. Health staff checked her children and dispensed medicines. Social welfare officers quietly confirmed that all her children were with her. Volunteers showed her where she could call relatives, where she would sleep, where she would find food, where she could pray.

“This border crossing is not simply a point of entry,” Dr. Kalapurakal told partners. “It is the beginning of a new chapter… a moment of great vulnerability, but also a moment where we can help create hope.”

That new chapter is being deliberately shaped.

Government has adopted a three-pronged reintegration strategy that reaches far beyond the reception tents.

Social reintegration means ensuring returnees can obtain identity documents, enroll their children in school, access health care and reconnect to social protection – with particular focus on women, children, people with disabilities and those with mental health needs.

Economic reintegration focuses on work and livelihoods. At registration desks, officials from the Ministry of Skills Audit and Development are documenting the skills of returnees. More than 15,000 people have already been entered into a growing national database, each with an average of more than one marketable skill – from farm work and bricklaying to driving, welding, domestic work and hospitality.

“These statistics tell us that returnees are not merely coming back home; they are also bringing back skills we can incorporate into our system,” a ministry representative noted. The challenge now is to connect those skills to real opportunities in agriculture, construction, services and local enterprises.

Cultural reintegration recognizes that some have been away for 10, 20 or even 30 years. Traditional leaders, churches and other faith-based organizations are being drawn into the process to help restore a sense of belonging, community norms and identity.

This whole approach is anchored in National Development Strategy 2 and Vision 2030 – turning a migration crisis into a chance to strengthen community resilience, human capital and inclusive growth.

What is unfolding at Beitbridge is one of the largest organized returns Zimbabwe has ever managed. On some June nights, more than 3,500 people arrived in just a few hours, overwhelming facilities designed for far fewer.

The system held because many hands were already on deck.

The Government of Zimbabwe is leading, with the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works, Civil Protection, Social Welfare, Health and Child Care, Skills Audit and Development, and Foreign Affairs and International Trade all playing defined roles in a coordinated architecture.

The United Nations family – including IOM, UNICEF, WFP, UNFPA, UN Women, WHO and others – is providing transport and logistics, food assistance, health and nutrition services, child protection and documentation, dignity kits, mental health and psychosocial support, WASH services and information management.

The First Lady, through her Angel of Hope Foundation, has mobilized food and essential goods, joining philanthropists and foundations who have quietly sent truckloads of support from within Zimbabwe and across the border.

Faith-based organizations and churches have offered tents, food, volunteers and counselling, repeating a simple message from their pulpits: these returnees are our brothers, sisters, children and neighbours.

Civil society groups such as MSF, Red Cross and No One Sleeps Hungry have brought medical care, extra toilets, handwashing facilities, communication services and food.

Ordinary Zimbabweans have arrived with mealie meal, blankets, used clothes – and the time and energy to help cook three hot meals a day for people they may never see again.

“We have adopted a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach,” explained Mr. Farai Hokonya, Acting Chief Director of Civil Protection. “This situation does not only remain a government issue. It is a community issue. It means everyone has to play a part.”

Restoring dignity, step by step

Inside the centre, the response is organized but deeply human.

Every person stepping off a bus is profiled by an intergovernmental team under Social Welfare’s Social Development Department. By mid-July, over 32,000 people had been processed here alone – around 18,600 women and girls, 13,000 children and just eight unaccompanied minors, a sign that most families managed to stay together.

A local catering committee from Beitbridge, supported by government and partners, works around the clock to ensure no one goes hungry. When numbers suddenly surged above 3,500 in a single night, the system “jammed”, officials recall – but did not break.

Civil Protection manages a central warehouse where every donation is recorded. Social Welfare draws items as needed to ensure food, hygiene and shelter are shared fairly. “Everything is 100% accounted for,” one official stressed, to honour the trust of those who give.

The Red Cross offers each returnee a free three-minute phone call to loved ones. In a small booth, a man who has not called home in years dials a familiar number. When his sister answers, his first word is simply: “Ndadzoka” – I am back.

Health workers from the Ministry of Health and Child Care, supported by partners, have treated more than 1,400 patients at the on-site clinic. Two-thirds are women; nearly a third are children under 15. Most are dealing with respiratory infections, exhaustion and pain from the journey, but many also need ARV refills, TB treatment, antenatal care and safe deliveries. A cholera treatment tent stands ready – a visible reminder of the ongoing risk when thousands share limited facilities.

“This is not just about immediate care,” a health official said. “We are thinking about continuity – immunizations, chronic disease management, mental health, long-term follow-up when people return to their home districts.”

A call not to look away

Despite remarkable progress, the strain is evident with crowded sleeping areas, queues at water points, drug stocks stretched thin, exhausted staff.

“The progress achieved and the growing number of returnees continue to place considerable pressure on transportation, shelter, food, health, sanitation and protection mechanisms,” Minister Garwe acknowledged. “Additional resources are required for safe ongoing operations and to prepare for further arrivals.”

In a Joint Resource Mobilization Statement signed by Honourable Garwe and Dr. Kalapurakal, the Government of Zimbabwe and the United Nations issued a united appeal, calling on all partners “to support this national effort to ensure the safe, orderly and dignified return and sustainable reintegration of all Zimbabwean nationals returning from South Africa.”

Standing beside him, Dr. Kalapurakal issued a wider appeal: “This is not a moment to observe from the sidelines. The needs are clear. The Government is leading. The United Nations will support these efforts cohesively as one family… What is required now is the additional support needed to match the scale of the challenge.”

For the families who step off the buses each day, that support is measured in very simple things. A plate of sadza after a 20‑hour journey, a mattress under a roof, a nurse checking a child’s breathing, a stranger paying for one more bus ride so a village daughter can reach home.

Every person crossing this border carries skills, aspirations and hopes for the future. Under Honourable Garwe’s leadership, the story unfolding at Beitbridge is about a country choosing not to turn away, but to turn towards its own – and inviting the world to walk with it, so that coming home is not the end of a journey, but the beginning of a new one.