Botswana/Zimbabwe: Cross-border shoppers disappear
FRANCISTOWN: Relative silence has replaced the bustle that Francistown, on the border between Botswana and Zimbabwe, used to experience during the peak shopping period at Christmas.
For the past decade the town has been the first port of call for Zimbabweans, who were unable to source necessities from basic foodstuffs to petrol and even soap in their own country, and relied on their neighbour for most things.
This year there is a marked shift in commercial activity, and the hawkers in the Francistown bus terminus are idle. "In the past, we used to get most of our money from Zimbabwean shoppers who would buy literally everything, from groceries to hardware and clothing items," Ikalafeng Maruping, a Francistown vendor, told IRIN.
Read the full article on IRIN.
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