Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi — 'The police know about the smuggling, but they can't act because they get bribed.'
Almost two weeks after the Malawian army raided the Dzaleka refugee camp to uproot people smuggling gangs, there's still a good deal of support for the action, but it's tinged with worry that these powerful networks may simply reestablish themselves.
Over 200 people were arrested on the night of 18 July when the army - without any warning - stormed in to break up a highly profitable business that illegally transports young, undocumented men from rural Ethiopia to find work in urban South Africa.
There was widespread panic as shots rang out for over an hour. "We thought we were going to die," said one refugee, who asked not to be named. "It felt like the old horrors we escaped from in our home countries."
A friend of mine from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who works with the Ethiopian-run smuggling syndicates, said the soldiers targeted the homes of Ethiopian refugees - immediately recognisable as they are much bigger than everybody else's.
"They arrested all refugees who helped Ethiopian traffickers to keep the illegal immigrants," he said. "The dogs [guarding the houses] were shot dead on the spot."
Not all the people smugglers were caught. We believe there were 13 or 14 syndicates operating in Dzaleka, a camp of over 50,000 people, the size of a small town. Six of the syndicate leaders were arrested, but some of the known smugglers are still in the camp and are free to go about their business.
'No one deserves to live like that'
This was not the first time the authorities have tried to crack down, and the smugglers have always been quick to adapt. "The traffickers have learned to avoid keeping illegal immigrants in their own homes," my friend explained. "They hide them with other nationals - Congolese, Burundians, Rwandans - to avoid capture."
"When I heard they were coming for us, I gathered everyone, and we quietly escaped to a nearby village," he added. "We didn't return until 4am."
The Ethiopian migrants, who usually spend months on the road, being passed from one smuggling gang to another, are known as "katundu" (goods). And that's pretty much how they are treated - like none-too-valuable cargo.
Tens of thousands make the trip to South Africa each year, where they typically find work in the informal shops of friends and relatives. It's a dangerous journey, and there are plenty of deaths on the road.
But the business provides employment for people in Dzaleka. Those who feed and supervise the groups of men that are slipped in and out of the camp are paid around $230 a month, while those who transport them to the Mozambican border can earn more than $1,400 in a single trip.
Smuggling/trafficking - what's the difference?
We often use the terms interchangeably, but there are important differences. Consent is the key issue: Migrants agree to being smuggled, while a trafficked person has been coerced.
Smuggling involves transporting people illegally across an international border. Once the destination is reached, the business arrangement is normally concluded. Traffickers on the other hand can continue to exploit - through violence, fraud, or intimidation, taking advantage of a person's vulnerability.
Along transport corridors like the route to South Africa, there can be a mix of both smuggling and trafficking during the course of the journey.
Nevertheless, most people in Dzaleka have supported the crackdown. They feel sympathy for the smuggled men, crammed into small rented rooms in the camp, irregularly fed, and sometimes beaten - when their families fail to pay the balance owed to allow them to continue their journey south.
"No one deserves to live like that," said one community leader from Burundi. "This had to end."
The people smugglers are feared. They are rich and powerful, and the police - all along the routes the smugglers take - are known to be in their pockets. That's why the raid was an army operation, with the police kept clueless and excluded.
"The police know [about the smuggling], but they can't act because they get bribed by Ethiopian traffickers," the community leader said.
Anger over the arrogance of the smugglers has been simmering in Dzaleka for a while. In March, things boiled over when a Congolese refugee fought back after he was slashed with a machete by a smuggler - who also attacked his sister when she tried to intervene.
In response, smugglers' homes were attacked, their cars smashed, and belongings looted.
Big business
The people smuggling business is extremely lucrative. Although there are many routes and countless networks involved in transporting people out of the Horn of Africa to South Africa, Dzaleka is a major hub.
The fee to transport somebody illegally from Ethiopia all the way to South Africa is roughly $4,800 per person. A top smuggler in Dzaleka earns about $2,300 per person, and can handle 200 people in a month. With that kind of money - a turnover of more than $5.5 million a year - they have built some of the finest homes in the camp, complete with high walls, electrified fences, and big metal gates.
To live in Dzaleka, the smugglers must have refugee documents. But we don't see them as legitimate refugees, and suspect instead that they have obtained their papers fraudulently.
Dzaleka, just outside the capital, Lilongwe, was established in 1994 to settle people fleeing the Great Lakes crisis. Over time, the government relaxed its official encampment policy, and some who had run successful businesses in Dzaleka moved out and set up in Lilongwe.
Then, in 2023, the government ordered all refugees back to Dzaleka. The people smugglers moved in with them, building homes rumoured to cost well over $100,000, and driving expensive cars.
Following the army raid, the police have now marked the houses belonging to smugglers with a big X - the idea being that this will enable the authorities to keep a better watch on any suspicious activity.
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The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, has also reiterated its condemnation of people smuggling and its determination to prevent it.
"UNHCR coordinates with authorities to expel individuals from the camp who are not refugees or asylum seekers and show signs of involvement in trafficking networks," the agency said in an email sent to me.
But while the hope in Dzaleka is that all those involved in people smuggling will be deported, we fear that might be just wishful thinking.
UNHCR has asked the government to free everyone detained in the raid who has refugee papers and return them to Dzaleka. Seeing as the smugglers have papers too, that includes them as well.
The only people for certain threatened with deportation are the smuggled Ethiopians, whose families had paid so much money - many taking out loans - so they could get to South Africa and begin a new life.
We suspect what will happen is that the smugglers in Dzaleka will learn to keep their business better hidden, but they will continue to mistreat people, and relations will deteriorate, maybe to the point of violence.
To save the situation, the government and UNHCR need to collaborate and take some urgent measures.
Firstly, the government should enforce its anti-corruption laws, especially regarding the behaviour of the police. Secondly, UNHCR should be more rigorous in its checks when recommending people for refugee status. And finally, immediate deportation should be the penalty for any smugglers operating in Dzaleka.
Edited by Obi Anyadike.
