When Matilda Sibanda left Bulawayo for South Africa a decade ago, she hoped to escape Zimbabwe’s crumbling health system. Now 34, she finds herself trapped between two failing systems, unable to access care at home, and increasingly rejected abroad.
“I expected to
struggle for work… But being denied medical help when you’re sick? That’s
inhumane.”
Operation
Dudula, launched in 2021, has justified itself as protecting South Africans by
targeting undocumented immigrants. In reality, the campaign has fostered
harassment, evictions, and the denial of basic healthcare services, even in
emergency cases.
Videos widely
shared on social media show pregnant Zimbabwean women being turned away from
hospitals. In a high-profile episode in 2022, Limpopo Health MEC Dr Phophi
Ramathuba berated a Zimbabwean patient at a public hospital, accusing her of
“killing my health system.”
“Even when you
are documented, they treat you like you don’t belong,” Sibanda says. “You live
in constant fear of being refused help.”
Zimbabwean
citizens living in South Africa have appealed for diplomatic intervention, but
the official response has been blunt: they are on their own.
Justice
Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi recently told Parliament that the Zimbabwean
government will not fund healthcare for citizens living in South Africa,
insisting that migrants must regularise their stay and contribute to that
country’s system.
“We are
currently unable as Parliament to budget for adequate health services for
citizens in the country,” Ziyambi said.
“Those who
moved to other countries, most of them are working. Those who are here are
being taken care of by the government. Those who left the country went to look
for better opportunities and they should be able to take care of themselves in
those countries. No government sends money to another government to take care
of its citizens who are in that country. If you are a South African citizen
resident in Zimbabwe, you would be required to obtain medical insurance in
Zimbabwe so you can receive medical assistance.
Our embassies,
however, stand ready to assist those with life-threatening conditions.”
Zimbabwe’s
healthcare infrastructure is in a state of decay. Hospitals lack basic drugs,
medical staff are overwhelmed, and equipment lies broken.
President
Emmerson Mnangagwa made unannounced visits in June 2025 to Harare’s two largest
referral hospitals, Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals and Sally Mugabe Central
Hospital, where he found outdated equipment, medicine shortages, and strained
staff.
The visits
prompted swift action with government announcing that the country’s major
hospitals will be rehabilitated to meet international standards.
Healthcare
worker groups, including the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights
(ZADHR), welcomed these developments and called for a Commission of Inquiry to
probe the healthcare crisis and propose structural reforms.
While the rapid
response was applauded, concerns remain about transparency. The speed of
renovations raised eyebrows, with critics questioning the tender processes and
whether this momentum will be sustained.
Ngqabutho
Mabhena, chairperson of the Zimbabwe Community in South Africa, described
Operation Dudula as “a wave of lawlessness hiding behind patriotism.”
“The operation
Dudula is continuing with its activities, although we deem these activities
illegal, but they continue to prevent people from accessing healthcare
facilities. Unfortunately, we do not have the number of Zimbabweans that have
been affected by this,” he said.
“The thing is
Operation Dudula doesn’t care if one is a legal immigrant or not, if you are
foreign, you are simply barred from accessing healthcare facilities. We saw
last week Abahlali Basemjondolo, confronting Operation Dudula on the street.
There are other South African organizations that took the government and
department of Home Affairs to court because they are arguing that they are
working in cahoots with Operation Dudula.
“Until the
government prevents Operation Dudula from doing what it is doing, those that
can afford can visit private health facilities, but we are imploring the
government to ensure that people have access to healthcare services.”
An article in
Daily Maverick argued that South Africa’s health crisis stems from years of
mismanagement and underinvestment, not foreign nationals.
The article
notes that healthcare infrastructure has persistently lagged behind demand and
population growth, irrespective of nationality, with many border-area hospitals
facing heightened pressure, not primarily from migration, but rather from
longstanding underinvestment in capacity and resources.
Critical
Studies scholar, Dr Khanyile Mlotshwa, said one of the key arguments used to
justify Operation Dudula is the claim that foreigners are overburdening South
Africa’s public resources, particularly in the health sector.
“They feel that
foreigners are abusing their country’s health system, that is the South African
taxpayer’s money. To some extent it is true that the health system is strained.
However, the impression that foreign nationals don’t pay tax is wrong,” Dr Mlotshwa
said.
“What is also
problematic with Dudula is branding people as illegal. First, no person can be
illegal. Second, Dudula has no means of ascertaining whether someone is in the
country illegally or not. Hence, they tend to lump foreign nationals together
and abuse them.”
He further
noted that Dudula seems to have a special kind of hatred for Zimbabweans, with
stereotypes of aliens out to take over the country produced and circulated,
especially online, resulting in some living in fear.
“In a sense,
groundwork has been done to ‘eliminate’ Zimbabweans. Zimbabweans live with that
reality in the back of their mind. That they are hated. Some give up and return
home. Those who stay put are compelled by their dire situation back home. I say
‘their’ because people’s circumstances both at home and in the diaspora are not
the same,” he said.
He added that
the issue of being turned away from hospitals is a recent development that will
likely be challenged in court.
“The Helen
Suzman Foundation has litigated in support of foreign nationals, as a way of
protecting them. When the government planned to cancel the special permits,
they mounted a victorious legal challenge in the country’s courts,” he said.
“The recent
developments, where people are blocked from accessing hospitals, are fairly new
and yet to be taken up as legal cases.” CITE
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