Zimbabweans who fled political turmoil and poverty at home are returning to their country in droves - terrified of another outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa.

Foster Baloyi, 26, who has worked on a farm in Groblersdal for nine years, was camped yesterday on the side of the road at the Musina border.

He had spent the past three days there with his eight-month-old daughter, wife and three brothers in an old bakkie loaded with belongings - with no money or petrol to get to Zimbabwe.

"We don't want to take chances with our lives. The community said they will burn us if we don't go. We just packed our things and left," he said. The family has been surviving on oranges.

Hunched dispiritedly on suitcases and piles of bedding, people camped on the N1 highway outside Cape Town this week, hoping to hitch truck rides to Johannesburg.

Refugees, workers and NGOs fear more xenophobic attacks after the World Cup in a repeat of the 2008 flare-up that claimed more than 60 lives and left thousands displaced in refugee camps.

The minister of police, Nathi Mthethwa, said security agencies were on high alert, but this week criticised high-ranking politicians and rumours for fuelling the "hysteria".

Mthethwa told NGOs and residents of Khayelitsha on Friday: "These are the people who prior to the 2010 Fifa World Cup embarked on the infamous smear campaign, saying there will be a bloodbath in this country and that crime is spiralling out of control."

The minister said foreigners leaving Cape Town were just "seasonal workers".

But as he spoke, armed thugs robbed a nearby Somali shop, which was then looted. Earlier this week, Reason Wandi, 27, a Zimbabwean, was thrown off a moving train by a crowd that threatened foreigners.

The SA Council of Churches has set up a hotline to help victims of xenophobic attacks.

Mthethwa's words were cold comfort to Alexander Ncube, 30, who boarded a packed train with his wife and two children on Thursday, he said, to save their lives. Families arrived at the Cape Town station at 5am carrying television sets, refrigerators, chairs and carpets - jostling to secure R250 third-class tickets on the Shosholoza Meyl to Johannesburg.

Ncube resigned as a waiter at the V&A Waterfront after living in Philippi on the Cape Flats for four years.

"I was not a seasonal worker. My landlord said he couldn't risk his house being destroyed by the community if I stayed longer. He was told at a meeting not to take rent money from foreigners any more because they are supposed to leave after the World Cup," Ncube said tearfully.

"He said the community would organise people going from door to door checking people's identity documents. I had no option but to leave. It is like jumping from one frying pan into another. I appreciate what my landlord did. He saved my life."

The train carriage was packed and stuffy. The mood inside was sombre during the 26-hour trip as parents fed wailing children dry bread.

Princess Phiri, 28, a mother of two, from a township near Muizenberg, was displaced in the 2008 violence. "I am not a seasonal worker. I operated a spaza shop with my husband in the township. Due to growing threats we had to abandon the shop, sell all the stock and leave."

She slept in a stationary train at the station on Wednesday to secure tickets, having left behind all her furniture.

"I think these threats are serious and the situation will be worse than the previous one. Community members are threatening to follow us to the churches if we get refuge there."

Elijah Dhliwayo, 23, a construction worker, lived in Capricorn Village in Muizenberg. Also not a seasonal worker, he was intimidated by locals. "I collected everything that I had and just left."

Zimbabwean activist Gabriel Shumba and director of Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (Zef) said he sent a letter to Mthethwa as early as June 3, urging him to take action to protect foreigners.

He said Zef had received several reports from Zimbabwean nationals, who had been warned to leave South Africa after the World Cup.

''In some instances, they have been issued with deadlines to leave South Africa or face xenophobic attacks," he wrote.

In Durban on Friday, a 27-year-old Zimbabwean plumber packed up his possessions and waited to take a bus home, via Johannesburg. ''I am scared. They told us, 'We are going to burn you.' Even when I was packing my things, they told me it was good, and that I must go," he said.

On Friday, the SA Defence Force troops were out in force in Johannesburg's Diepsloot. The soldiers were deployed as part of the 2010 World Cup security plan.

They searched taverns and streets. Department of Defence spokesman Siphiwe Dlamini said the soldiers were deployed around the country for crime prevention during the World Cup, and not to combat xenophobia.

Ncube, who once worked as a barman at the Sun International Hotel in Harare, said: "These are not empty threats. We've got a feeling that this will be much more dangerous than the last (round of xenophobic violence). We are really, really shivering about it," he said.

ýNcube's surname has been changed at his request to protect his family in Zimbabwe. - Additional reporting by Monica Laganparsad and Bongani Mdakane

nombembepsundaytimes.co.za

By The Times (SA)

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