Zimbabweans fleeing xenophobia in South Africa battle to get HIV medicine back home

By Jeffrey Moyo FOR the past two decades, 49-year-old Renious Gumbi from Mberengwa in Zimbabwe lived in South Africa, where he worked as a bricklayer. Gumbi, who was living with HIV, received free antiretroviral (ARV) treatment from his local clinic in South Africa as, according to that country’s Constitution, “everyone has the right to have access to healthcare services”. But worsening economic conditions and growing unemployment in South Africa have led to the formation of anti-immigrant groups such as Operation Dubula and March and March, which have blamed non-citizens for service delivery problems – although these have been caused largely by systemic corruption.

Over several months, anti-immigrant groups have blockaded many clinics and hospitals, refusing to allow non-citizens to enter. As a result, Gumbi was unable to get ARVs since June and became seriously ill. In desperation, his wife, Senzeni, arranged for him to return to Zimbabwe using cross-border transporters known as malayitshas.

Gumbi was at last given ARVs at the Zimbabwean border with South Africa, but it was too late. He died soon after returning to the country of his birth. “It was cruel for South African leaders to leave anti-migrant activists blocking my husband from getting his ARV treatment drugs,” Senzeni told Health Policy Watch.

“It is also heartless for the Zimbabwean government not to have a plan for its people living with HIV in South Africa when the same regime benefits from the money many Zimbabweans based in South Africa formally send to help their loved ones back home.” Harder to get ARVs Access to ARV treatment in Zimbabwe has grown more difficult since talks between the United States and Zimbabwe on future US aid for HIV and other health services broke down in February, jeopardising the HIV treatment of some 1.2 million people reliant on US aid. A recent study also projects that approximately 75,000 Zimbabweans will contract HIV within a year if there is a complete withdrawal of the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). While South Africa has also been badly affected by the US decision to phase out all HIV and other health support, it was not reliant on the US to pay for antiretroviral treatment.

It is hard to estimate how many Zimbabweans are in South Africa as thousands have entered the country illegally through poorly policed borders.