SABC reported the deaths of five men attempting to cross the river. Their bodies were retrieved badly eaten by crocodiles. Police had to fire shots to scare off the crocodiles.136 One 18-year old interviewee sobbed as she described to the authors, crossing the Limpopo in the middle of the night in January this year. She was one of 73 who crossed together on this night, and she said it was the most terrifying experience of her life. She said the water was up to her armpits, and as this huge crowd stirred up the water, crocodiles closed in. The last person to cross was seized by a crocodile as she approached the shore, and others had to go back and drag her from the water, at which point the crocodile let go and swam off, leaving the victim injured but alive.137 Human predators: “maguma guma” and the SANDF The border area is alive with touts: smuggling people has become a permanent livelihood for many. There are two ways to cross - by taxi or bus through the designated border post at Beitbridge, or through the riverbed. For a price, both are possible without papers. Girls are able to cross the border in trucks, in return for sex with the driver. They hide in the truck drivers’ beds and cross in this way.138 To cross the river without a passport costs from R300 to R500, if you rely on a tout. However, some of these touts entrap Zimbabweans by leading them to isolated spots and then robbing them of all their money and possessions. These men are referred to as “maguma guma”, which means “to get something the easy way” in Shona. Interviewees reported assaults or rape at the hands of these men. The easiest way to enter South Africa once across the river, is at places where there are gates in the border fence for South African farmers to access the water for farming purposes. These gates are manned by SANDF, and for a fee, they will turn a blind eye and let the Zimbabweans walk by. However, female immigrants are frequently forced to “pay” this fee in sex; a young girl’s first experience on arrival in South Africa is often rape by soldiers in exchange for not being deported. Interviewees told this to us, as did human rights lawyers, and this has been documented by NGOs working with children in the Musina area. In August this year, five members of the SANDF were arrested on multiple charges of rape and theft. They are accused of systematically ambushing Zimbabweans in the border area, and stripping them of all belongings. Among the claims are that they raped a number of Zimbabwean women before forcing them to swim naked back across the Limpopo River. A storage container of stolen goods was recovered in the vicinity of Madimbo Military Base near the border in South Africa.139 Lawyers for Human Rights gives training in refugee rights and law to members of the police and army operating in the Zimbabwe border area. However, they comment that the SANDF turns over most of its personnel there every three months, meaning that there are always soldiers with not much background in the rights of undocumented migrants in charge of finding them. LHR said that apart from reports of soldiers raping asylum seekers, soldiers make other demands of them, including making them do their washing, ironing and polishing in return for not being 136 SABC News, Four more bodies found in Limpopo River, 22 April 2004. See Appendix One, Case One, for this case in full. 138 Centre for Positive Care (CPC), “Poverty made this decision for me”: children in Musina: their needs and experiences, August 2003. 139 The Star (RSA), 17th August 2004; also The Chronicle (Zim), SA soldiers nabbed for raping locals, 19 August 2004. 137 58