25 Aug 2024

A packed truck-load of her belongings is parked in front of the village kgotla before 9:30am. It ferried her goods from her previous home of Dukwi Refugee Camp to Lepokole.

Before everyone sets in, the truck takes off to a place where the 44-year-old Ms Thenjiwe Ncube and her family will now call home. 

She is not a stranger to Lepokole. It is a place she once called home from 2008 until 2012 when she subsequently retraced her steps back to Dukwi Refugee Camp.

She recalls vividly how she first set her foot in Botswana. It was in May 2, 2008 when she fled from her native country of Zimbabwe and landed in Lepokole. She stayed in Lepokole temporarily before being taken to Bobonong showground, where she spent two days before an ultimate decision was made to transport her to Gerald, Francistown.

In 2012, when she left for Dukwi Refugee Camp for the second stint there, she was accompanied by her two children. 

She returns in 2024 with an additional three. 

With her five children, Ms Ncube is raring to find her footing and lead a normal life as part of Lepokole community.

Of course, she speaks Setswana fluently and feels like part of the community that was once her home. 

She looks forward to a free and peaceful life. Together with her children, they await processing of their identity documents affirming they are Batswana and qualify for all that citizens do.

Members of the community who attended the consultation meeting were hospitable and warm to Ms Ncube’s family, at least by confirmation and utterances.

“Please, do not call them refugees. I plead that you shun that label,” deputy permanent secretary (human rights and equity) in the Ministry of Justice, Ms Thobo Letlhage appealed to Lepokole community.

Speaking during the consultation meeting for the integration of former Zimbabwe refugees at Lepokole recently, Ms Letlhage also pleaded with service providers, especially those that required the use of national identity documents, to assist Ms Ncube’s family accordingly whilst waiting theirs to be processed.

She advised them not to push the family into deplorable state.

Minister of Justice, Honourable Machana Shamukuni said like everyone else, Ms Ncube yearned for peace and freedom.

“We pray day and night that we find peace so that we can live peacefully for the rest of our lives,” the Minister said, and appealed against segregation of the Ncube family.

Mr Shamukuni said the government was compelled to provide asylum seekers with decent shelter while assessing their conditions.

He said such a living example was Dukwi Refugee Camp, which had a primary school to allow for children of the refugees to attend school while parents were still assessed and processed.

He said where possible, refugees may be returned to their countries when the factors that led to them fleeing were addressed. 

Those that cannot be repatriated, but qualify for permanent residence, are integrated into the society, as in the case of Ms Ncube, the minister explained. Ends