from ARNOLD MULENGA in Lusaka, Zambia
Zambia Bureau
LUSAKA, (CAJ News) – ZAMBIA has deported 143 individuals in a crackdown against illegal immigration.
Those nabbed through the mass removal and deportation operation comprise 133 Burundians, seven Rwandans and three Tanzanians.
Some had been convicted of various immigration-related offences and were removed after paying their respective court fines, while others were removed without prosecution.
Namati Nshinka, Chief Public Relations Officer of the Department of Immigration, said in the same operation, the department deported Misheck Francis Bundala, a Tanzanian national, following his release from lawful custody after serving a prison sentence for drug trafficking-related offences.
Bundala, who was aged 40 at the time of his admission to prison, was convicted by the Lusaka Magistrate Court in 2024 on two counts of trafficking in psychotropic substances.
He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour on the first count and one year and six months’ imprisonment with hard labour on the second count, with the sentences running concurrently.
“Following his release from custody, Bundala was handed over to the Department of Immigration and subsequently deported from Zambia as a prohibited immigrant,” Nshinka said.
Zambia, the Southern African country, has a high number of neighbours, sharing land borders with eight different nations, putting it in a tie for second place on the continent alongside Tanzania.
Zambia has borders with Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
– CAJ News