South Africa election 2024: ‘You see skeletons’ - the deadly migrant crossing - BBC News

Many migrants risk all to reach South Africa, where their presence has become a hot election issue.

1 day agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingRelated TopicsSouth Africa elections 2024Image source, BBC/Ed HabershonBy Jenny HillBBC News, MusinaMany migrants risk all to reach South Africa, making a notoriously dangerous journey across the border from Zimbabwe. Having fled poverty and desperation elsewhere in Africa they feel they have no choice. But as elections approach, xenophobic sentiment is on the rise and South Africa's government is under pressure to tighten the border.

The men who raped Portie Murevesi did not care that she was visibly pregnant.

They attacked her with glass bottles too, she told us, pointing to a large and jagged scar on her forearm.

Image source, BBC/Ed HabershonImage caption, Portie Murevesi has nightmares about her ordealNow, her pregnancy almost at full term, she is recovering at a church-run shelter in the South African border town of Musina.

"When I try to sleep sometimes, I see what those men did to me," she told the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-68680534

---