Actor Matt Damon is in South Africa to film a movie about Nelson Mandela, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela. While there, he decided to visit the Zimbabwe border town of Musina to help raise awareness of the suffering going on in that country and of those that have fled it.
(This image is in the public domain because it contains materials that originally came from the United States Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook.)
Damon visited a Zimbabwean refugee camp and talked to some of the people there. He heard stories of the sexual violence occurring against the country’s women. There are about 5,000 refugees living in the camp that Damon visited, most sleeping on cardboard, if anything. There are only a dozen toilets and few water taps for all the people living there.
Damon is working with Not On Our Watch, which is a non-profit human rights organization. Not On Our Watch was founded by George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub and in the past, it has also supported humanitarian efforts in Darfur.
Damon said he was “shocked and saddened” by the stories of the refugee as it is estimated that about three million Zimbabweans have been displaced due to economic collapse, political instability, and dire living conditions. In addition, the country is riddled with disease, with almost 4,000 people having died from cholera and another 83,000 infected with it.
One 18 year old woman told Damon of how she fled the county, only to be raped when she was five months pregnant by a taxi driver who promised her a job. Many refugees must cross the Limpopo River, which is filled with crocodiles, to leave Zimbabwe. Many also pay high prices to dishonest guides to help them cross the border. Even getting across the border is risky as gangs, known as gumagumas, patrol the border looking to rob and rape refugees. Children, who have nothing, are fleeing alone and are also falling prey to the gangs. Because the refugees are in South Africa illegally, the gumagumas know they will not file any crime reports.
A new Zimbabwe government is asking for $2 billion dollars in aid to help rebuild the country.