Twenty South African land borders that have been closed for more a month, have re-opened today.
This past Saturday, cabinet gave the go-ahead for the reopening for these border posts:
South Africa’s land borders have been closed since 11 January after large traveller volumes caused massive bottlenecks, particularly at the Beitbridge border with Zimbabwe and Lebombo post with Mozambique. These quickly developed into “super-spreader” events, with more than 100 confirmed Covid-19 cases recorded at Beitbridge border alone.
For the past month, travel into and out of South Africa through these border posts were limited to only a number of reasons – including the transportation of fuel, cargo and goods as well as emergency medical treatment.
A host of new interventions are being implemented to prevent the chaos witnessed over the festive period, including that trucks will be limited to a 700-metre queue. As soon as the queues become longer than that, trucks will be diverted to rest stops.
