"We have put three big tents in Beitbridge, 10,000 blankets, 20 boxes of laundry soap and 1,000 buckets," Madzudzo Pawadyira, head of the government's civil protection unit, told AFP. Beitbridge is the main border crossing to South Africa.

"The same measures have also been put in place in Plumtree to cater for those returning through the Plumtree border" with Botswana, he added.

Scores of Zimbabweans working and living in South Africa are returning home after the 2010 football World Cup, with rumours of xenophobic violence swirling through poor neighbourhoods, he said.

"Indeed, there has been an increase of volume at Beitbridge, but this is not only confined to Zimbabweans, but this also includes other nationals from Zambia and Malawi," Pawadyira said.

"Most of the people who were in South Africa are sending their children back home. Then you have those who are coming back because their usefulness in South Africa is no longer required.

"We have put up the contingency plans in partnership with United Nations agencies such as International Organisation for Migration, other non-governmental organisations such as Medicins Sans Frontieres and World Vision."

He sought to allay fears of a repeat of the 2008 xenophobic attacks that left 62 dead and thousands without homes when mobs of South Africans turned on foreign nationals they accused of taking scarce jobs.

"We have been assured by the South African authorities that they will stem out out these attacks on foreigners and this is quite encouraging," Pawadyira said.