The BMA reported a 46% decline in illegal border-crossing attempts.
An 11-month-old baby was found abandoned at Beitbridge port of entry on 13 December 2025, while a kidnapped South African child from Johannesburg was intercepted being smuggled to Mozambique.
These are some incidents involving children that have highlighted the need for child protection during the 2025-26 festive season.
Border Management Authority (BMA) Commissioner Dr Michael Masiapato revealed the alarming trend during a media briefing on Friday.
Surge of child abandonment across borders
Masiapato reported that 53 unaccompanied minors were discovered at Beitbridge alone, with some children as young as three years old travelling without documentation.
“On the 13th of December, an 11-month-old baby was found abandoned at the port of entry,” Masiapato said.
At Lebombo port of entry, 15 minors were intercepted attempting to illegally exit South Africa.
Another alarming incident involved a Mozambican national attempting to smuggle a South African child across the border.
“It was later discovered that the child was reported missing in Johannesburg, and the suspect was immediately arrested, and the matter was referred to the South African Police Services (Saps) for further processing,” the commissioner explained.
He said the case is under investigation by Saps at Komatipoort Police Station. Initial investigations revealed the child came from Fourways, Johannesburg, and had been reported kidnapped, though authorities found no indication of syndicated activity.
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Emergency diplomatic intervention
The crisis prompted the BMA to convene an urgent meeting with its counterparts at the Zimbabwean embassy.
“The engagement addressed matters of the movement of undocumented minors at the port of entry, including issues of irregular cross-border movements around issues of illegal migration,” Masiapato said.
Delegates agreed to conduct awareness sessions targeting parents, establish referral pathways and implement joint screening procedures.
According to the commissioner, all intercepted minors were taken to places of safety.
Pattern of escalation
The problem represents a troubling reversal. In December 2023, border guards stopped approximately 410 children travelling on 743 buses without documentation.
“At that time, you could see that that was basically the norm. When the school closes, the people would literally just tell somebody with the bus to pick up their children and literally bring them through,” Masiapato explained.
That triggered an emergency meeting with Zimbabwean officials, resulting in protocols that dramatically reduced undocumented child movements through 2024 and early 2025.
“We haven’t had any serious issues with unaccompanied minors who are undocumented. But now this time, we now start to see the escalation,” Masiapato said.
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Transportation sector compliance
The BMA highlighted a critical compliance difference between transportation sectors.
He said bus companies have cooperated effectively regarding permit revocations for transporting illegal migrants.
“The cooperation of the bus companies in avoiding the transportation of undocumented individuals is highly appreciated. And that is why in this particular period, we didn’t have any major concern about individuals being moved by buses,” stated the commissioner.
However, taxi operators remain problematic.
“We still have to further intensify our engagement with the taxi operators because even in this instance of these minors, they were mainly being transported by the taxis,” he added.
Child protection protocols
The commissioner emphasised the importance of documentation requirements for minors and rejected social media criticism of the policy.
“Somebody was saying, ‘But no, why do you stop them? Why don’t you allow them to go?’ And we had to basically say, ‘No, you can’t allow a child to cross the border without identification,” he said.
Masiapato noted the Johannesburg kidnapping case demonstrated why protocols cannot be relaxed.
He explained that children intercepted without documentation are not arrested but kept in places of safety while authorities work with the Department of Social Development to profile them and reconcile them with families.
“You sometimes even have children as young as three years old, who do not even know the name of their mother, for instance. So those are very sensitive issues that we have to deal with,” Masiapato explained.
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Decline in illegal border-crossing attempts
The child trafficking concerns emerged during operations that saw the BMA facilitate 4.9 million travellers across 71 ports of entry between 10 December 2025 and 15 January 2026.
Among other items that were seized, the authority intercepted one set of human remains and confiscated illicit skin-lightening creams.
Overall, the BMA reported a 46% decline in illegal border-crossing attempts, intercepting 26 852 individuals compared with 58 394 during the previous festive season.
This decline was attributed to the deployment of drones.
However, the surge in unaccompanied minors demonstrates that enforcement technology alone cannot address complex humanitarian and criminal challenges.
The authority noted that upcoming awareness campaigns targeting parents will be critical to preventing child abandonment and trafficking.
Arrests and deportations
The border guards arrested 81 individuals for various offences, including attempts to exit with stolen vehicles and possession of illicit goods such as firearms, contraband drugs, and dangerous items like commercial explosives and blasting cartridges.
“These are the things that we intercept in the ports, particularly in our North Corridor, attempting to bring ballistic cartridges for the purposes of exploding the cash-in-transit vehicles or actually even using them for the purposes of illegal mining,” Masiapato said.
Of the 26 852 individuals intercepted attempting to enter illegally, 22 153 were undocumented.
Furthermore, 2 353 were classified as undesirable due to previous overstays or legislative violations, and 2 346 were deemed inadmissible.
Basotho nationals led with 14 828 interceptions, followed by Zimbabweans at 5 370 and Mozambicans at 1 373.
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