At Musina police station, two police officers gave initially contradictory accounts of the role of DHA officials with respect to Zimbabwean detainees awaiting deportation. A police inspector told Human Rights Watch: “You can’t deport Malawians without the DHA first dealing with them.” When asked why there was a different practice for Malawians and Zimbabweans, he replied, “The instruction is that we can simply deport Zimbabweans, unlike Malawians who must first see the DHA. I don’t know why.”90 About an hour later, the police officer in charge of communications described standard procedures, which included: “The station calls the Home Affairs Department to verify the information of the Zimbabweans.”91 He went on to talk about asylum seekers. At Musina police station, he said, no one had claimed asylum. On a different visit, the communications officer acknowledged that the DHA treated Malawians and Zimbabweans in detention differently. “Malawians are usually claiming asylum, that’s why DHA is involved.” Otherwise, “DHA does spot checks to verify identities. Maybe DHA comes to establish if there are any problems for asylum.”92 The DHA practice at Musina police station of assuming that all Zimbabweans are economic migrants deprives those seeking asylum of an opportunity to declare their status to a DHA official. The assumption that Zimbabwean migrants are not asylum seekers because Zimbabwe is not at war is, as noted earlier, widespread among officials in the DHAs and the South African Police Service, and does not explain the different treatment Malawians receive, as Malawi is also not at war. On a third visit to Musina police station, Human Rights Watch encountered a Zimbabwean asylum seeker who was awaiting deportation. The 36-year-old Zimbabwean man from Chipinge said he and a friend had crossed the border illegally and had been arrested on a bus at Masisi, near Kruger National Park, en route to Thohoyandou. They were taken to Masisi police camp, and then to Musina police station. “We are opposition party supporters. We have been chased, and then we ran, and then we came here.”93 They were trying to reach Pretoria, where the interviewee had been told he could get a refugee permit. This was his second attempt to obtain refugee status: On his first attempt in May 2005, he had entered South Africa illegally. The DHA at Beitbridge had issued him with an asylum transit permit—in terms of the Immigration Act, as amended, the director-general of the DHA may issue an asylum transit permit, valid for 14 days, to a person who at a port of entry claims to be an 90 Human Rights Watch interview with a police official, Musina police station, Musina, April 22, 2006. Human Rights Watch interview with the police officer in charge of communications, Musina police station, Musina, April 22, 2006. 92 Human Rights Watch interview with a police official, Musina police station, Musina, April 24, 2006. 93 Human Rights Watch interview with a Zimbabwean asylum seeker in detention and awaiting deportation, Musina police station, Musina, April 26, 2006. 91 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOLUME 18, NO. 6(A) 24