Zim reopens borders

Harare (New Ziana)-Zimbabwe on Tuesday re-opened the country’s borders to public after an eight- month closure due to Covid-19.

The borders were closed to human traffic in March when Zimbabwe and its regional neighbours implemented lockdowns meant to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Only cargo was allowed to enter or pass through Zimbabwe during the duration of the lockdowns.
With restrictions gradually being relaxed, land borders have now re-opened following the recent resumption of international and domestic flights.

Nqobile Ncube, assistant regional immigration officer in charge of Beitbridge Border Post confirmed the reopening of the land border between Zimbabwe and South Africa.

“Today being the 1st of December 2020 we want to confirm that Beitbridge is open to the public as from 0600 hours.

“…Anyone willing to leave the country should be in possession of a valid passport and because of the Covid-19 situation, they ought to be having a Covid-19 free certificate PCR1 which is less than 48 hours from the point of issue,” he said.

Ncube said border processes were tightened to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

“The only difference is that this time we are awake to social distancing, we are awake to keep a safe working environment; we are awake to the fact that Covid-19 is still prevalent and we need to prevent it from cascading to our officers; our frontline workers or affecting travellers,” he said.

Ncube said when the border opened on Tuesday; the volume of travellers was low.

“But for today since 6Am we just had a trickle in terms of movement of people but we interpreted this to mean that people were not really sure what was going to be happening but now that people have started to communicate with each other, we expect our figures to start going up as the day progress.

“We want to emphasize please travel with your documentation and you carry required Covid-19 regulations certificates so that you don’t suffer any inconveniences,” he said.

Zimbabwe has to date recorded 10 034 Covid-19 cases including 277 deaths since the onset of the pandemic on March 20.
New Ziana