Musina, South Africa – Every day, Fadzai Musindo walks across the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa – sometimes via the official border post but usually by taking the more dangerous informal route.

Streams of men, women and children regularly cross the bridge separating the two countries, but for the 43-year-old mother of three, it is a necessity so she can earn enough to fend for her children.

Musindo works as a “runner”, physically carrying goods into Zimbabwe for people who shop in South Africa and need their wares transported to the other side. Amid Zimbabwe’s ailing economy and scarcity of certain items, the job has become popular.

But using the formal Beitbridge border post presents more challenges and expenses than solutions for Musindo.

“I need to save the pages on my passport so I can’t stamp every day. If I did that, I would have to buy a passport every year, I can’t do that,” she said, determined to put off paying the $150 fee for a replacement travel document for as long as possible.

So to make it across to South Africa and back, Musindo walks to the banks of the Limpopo River, one of the largest in Africa, where groups of young men known as goma-gomas smuggle people over for a small fee.

The crossing is technically illegal, and dangerous – with irregular migrants at risk of being raped or robbed. But Musindo says she walks with other women to avoid the risks.

“If we walk as a group, nothing will happen to us because we are many,” she explained about her daily journeys made with a bundled-up cloth on her head, carrying groceries and household items for her clients. “People don’t bother us because we work here every day. The soldiers know who we are so when they see us passing, they let us go,” she claimed.

Once across, Musindo uses the legal walkways. But through the bush and across the crocodile-infested Limpopo, the 5km (3-mile) stretch is uncertain terrain. The goma-gomas promise they can evade the police and soldiers patrolling the bushes along the river, but since South Africa’s army (SANDF) launched a new border safeguarding operation last year, many are more worried than before.

On patrol

Deployed under the SANDF’s Operation Corona, groups of soldiers with rifles in hand, patrol along the 233km (145-mile) Limpopo border on the lookout for smugglers and people crossing illegally.

On a patrol in late November, the soldiers camouflaged themselves in the surrounding grassland, waiting to see who would cross.

Eventually, two young men passed by, leading a group of three women and a child through the bush; not far behind, a few more young men followed their bush guides into South Africa.

But as the soldiers appeared from the tall grass, the young men ran away, leaving the group at the army’s mercy.

A pregnant woman was caught and taken into custody by the soldiers. The mother of the young boy managed to flee back to the no man’s land between Zimbabwe and South Africa, but her son and friend were apprehended and made to sit on the surrounding rocks until a car came to escort them to the border.

For those who ran away on foot, Major Shihlangoma Mahlahlane, who leads the joint technical operation for Operation Corona, explained that the SANDF cannot pursue them.

“In the middle of the river, it’s no man’s land that’s where it divides Zimbabwe and South Africa so when we chase them away they know we can’t do anything,” Mahlahlane said.

“We need to stop and come back otherwise we will engage with the Zimbabwean authorities. There is nothing we can do about it.”

The enhanced border operation, which began in September and will run until the end of April, covers South Africa’s borders with Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The SANDF says since it started, fewer undocumented travellers have been taking the risk of crossing through informal means, even though smuggled goods remain a problem. However, many still take a chance.

Technical challenges for law enforcement have also created opportunities for smugglers. In 2020, a 40km (25-mile) fence was erected between South Africa and Zimbabwe at a cost of $2.1m – but sections have since been cut. Despite efforts to reinstall the boundary, there are gaping holes in the stretch of barbed wire. A holey fence, combined with a seasonally dry river allows people to brave crossing, officials say.

Causing ‘distress’

Across Limpopo’s sandy banks at night, the goma-gomas light fires to keep warm and send signals to other crossers about where to come and wait. They bide their time until the next chance to make the crossing with more people emerges.

But those taken into custody by the army face a different fate. Immigration officials will send them back to Zimbabwe, but Major Mahlahlane fears that even if they get deported, they may come back again in the hope of seeking better opportunities.

“Pregnant women cross into South Africa and after they give birth they try to have their child registered as a South African, so they can try to obtain the child grant,” he said.

But, while public hospital facilities in South Africa are far better than those in Zimbabwe, accessing the monthly grant of 530 rand ($29) per child in South Africa is not an automatic process even for single South African mothers.

The South African Border Management Authority (BMA), set up in April 2023 to improve border control, has deported and arrested more than 410,000 people at different sites since a new coalition government came to power in May last year. The government, made up of 11 parties that campaigned on curbing migration, has promised to speed up deportations as some cases take months to resolve.

However, Loren Landau, a professor at the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, which produces academic research on migration trends across the continent, cautions that the fast-track removals of irregular migrants could create other problems.

“Part of the BMA’s mandate is to ensure people move out of South Africa quickly and when they are deported quickly they don’t have access to social workers or lawyers, families get separated and it causes more distress.

“Often people come back and instead of using the trusted routes people tend to go underground which could be far more dangerous for vulnerable people and minors,” Landau told Al Jazeera.

A bus-to-bus, car-to-car operation

On the other side of the Limpopo, the Zimbabwean government has launched a crackdown on smugglers and illicit goods brought in by buses, private cars and trucks.

According to Tafadzwa Muguti, the secretary for presidential affairs and devolution, a task force which includes the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA), immigration and the police will search all vehicles crossing.

Anyone who cannot account for their goods will have them confiscated and penalties for those who contravene import regulations.

He said the operation intensified over the recent festive season, “a period when smuggling activity often peaks as Zimbabwean expatriates returning home are known to bring goods that evade customs duty, exacerbating the challenges faced by local manufacturers”.

The Beitbridge border, one of Africa’s busiest, sees more than 13,000 travellers and more than 400 buses crossing daily. Alongside the regular movement, people and goods are smuggled in and out of South Africa daily.

ZIMRA estimates Zimbabwe has lost up to $1bn in undeclared import revenue, so the tax agency officials search each border transporter. But the operation has caused lengthy delays at the busy border, frustrating those travelling for the festive season.

Always another way

For Musindo, however, the border operation has meant further delays to her work as a runner, as it has cut off the possibility of using faster, alternative means to make the crossing.

“When it’s like this, I can wait more than five hours in the queue [at the border post] with someone’s luggage; on some days it can be even longer, so even though the border can be full with people, in a day I can get 200 rand [$11] if I’m lucky to carry for two customers,” she lamented.

Being stuck in long queues can be frustrating for travellers, but for Musindo, waiting for hours while people wade through the queues to get their passports stamped means she earns less money as more time is spent waiting. Though crossing via the Limpopo River is riskier, it takes just 45 minutes, she says.

Aware of the dangers, Musindo does not always use the informal route but says when the border is full, she can go back and forth across the river three times a day, instead of only once at the official post.

“It’s better when there are no delays, I get much more [money]; but for now there is no other way,” she explained.

Meanwhile, in the bushes of the Limpopo, more South African forces are on patrol, clamping down on movement.

“Because the river is dry, people are exploiting the gaps. They will not focus on the point of entry, but they would rather come and exploit a gap,” said Major Mahlahlane. At times, the river is seasonally dry and more so due to the drought, but the onset of the rains has not deterred people.

He added that the army is not concerned about Zimbabweans who are in South Africa legally. “There will be more security forces along the border … but we are focusing on illegal activity.”

Some South African villages along the Limpopo River are also complicit in the illegal ferrying of goods using donkey carts, he said. Cigarettes are common contraband that goes into the South African market. The steep import levies charged by South Africa make smuggling a lucrative option for those looking to evade duties. Since Operation Corona began, more than 8 million rand ($500,000) worth of cigarettes have been seized along border settlements, officials said.

‘The issue is not at the border’

However, permanently clamping down on illicit trade could be difficult for South Africa as the runners and goma-gomas who have crossed the river route for decades could find other paths.

“Whenever we invest in more border security there is a race with smugglers, the more we securitise, the more sophisticated people become in getting their goods across, they will always find other means,” Landau told Al Jazeera.

Reducing irregular migration in the long term requires a multifaceted approach, according to James Chapman, head of advocacy at the Scalabrini Center, a non-profit organisation that protects migrants and refugee rights.

“Border management requires a sustainable, multipronged approach … in a manner that is in keeping with fundamental human rights and South Africa’s legal framework.”

However, Landau maintains border control is a political issue, with xenophobia having spurred waves of attacks on foreigners in the past. He argues the main challenge is not migration, but the state of South Africa’s poor urban areas.

“A long-term solution depends on what the problem is and where it is, the issue is not at the border, the problem is in the cities, in townships that have been overtaken by criminal gangs and addressing that issue is key,” he said.

Crime and inequality are pervasive issues in post-apartheid South Africa and in marginalised communities, African foreigners are often the target of public frustration.

Despite the xenophobic backlash, many Africans still see the continent’s most industrialised economy as their potential path to a better life.

Despite army patrols heightened along Limpopo’s sandy marshes and the high risk of being caught as an undocumented person, with the start of another year, new groups of Zimbabweans are considering going to South Africa to escape their country’s economic woes.

Meanwhile, for daily border workers, Musindo feels taking a chance to cross under the bridge is better than waiting in the long queues that cut down the amount of money she is able to earn for her family.

“I need to work as much as I can because in January my children need to go back to school. The soldiers might try to stop people, but what can I do? This is the only way I can use,” she said, before disappearing back into the moving crowds.