Southern Africa: Integration and the migrant migraine
The goal of Southern African regional integration is being set back by the outflow of Zimbabwean migrants to neighbouring countries, according to researchers.
An estimated three million Zimbabweans have emigrated as a result of the county's economic and political crisis, many of them heading to neighbouring South Africa and Botswana. Their arrival has triggered a rise in xenophobia as locals complain about competition for jobs and rising crime rates.
Ayesha Kajee, programme director of the International Human Rights Exchange at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa, noted that "the influx of both political and economic migrants has been unprecedented" and regional integration efforts "have since been pushed to the sidelines".
