BY DION WATUNGWA & SIBONGILE NJOVO
“THE world has moved on, but we are still here. It feels like we do not exist outside this camp,” said a young woman from Rwanda.
“We eat once a day…when I feed my children, I pretend I am not hungry so that they do not worry, inside, I am starving too,” shared a mother from Congo.
These stories, though heartbreaking, are no longer unique. They dominate the news cycle for a moment, then disappear, leaving behind not just statistics, but real people whose suffering continues long after the world looks away. Tucked away in the southern suburb of Waterfalls, Harare, a vital facility yet so little regarded, the refugee transit centre is nothing, but a holding place, creating anxiety, frustration, and hopelessness.
Journeys marked by fear and uncertainty of tomorrow unfold while the world debates politics. The women and children who arrive at the Waterfalls centre are often traumatised and malnourished. Robbed of the right to learn and play in a safe environment, children grow up without education and with wounds that may never heal, as they lack proper schooling and psychosocial support.
Their mothers, on the other hand, carry the double burden of their children’s needs and their own vulnerabilities, suffering from abuse, limited access to healthcare, financial need, poor sanitation, and inadequate food supplies. As the rate of refugees and asylum seekers increases rapidly, the centre — designed as a short-term holding place — is overwhelmed.
Aid groups step in with temporary relief, yet families end up staying for months and years due to systemic issues that remain unsolved. What, then, is the way forward? A long-term solution that can bridge the gap between displaced people and the host communities around them lies in community integration programmes.
These programmes would allow refugees to be integrated into local schools, clinics, and job opportunities while awaiting permanent resettlement, instead of being confined to a transit centre. Through this approach, multiple challenges can be addressed at once.
Children should be allowed to attend nearby local schools, ensuring continuity of education instead of sitting idle in the camp. Women would access maternal care, local clinics, and counselling services without waiting for overstretched camp facilities. The centre should function as intended — a short-term stop — rather than a prolonged holding place.
This solution would ease the burden the centre carries by reducing overcrowding and the sense of confinement. It will restore a measure of humanity to those who would have lost it by ensuring the facility can genuinely take care of each refugee’s needs during a brief stay.
Every human has the right to basic necessities such as a mother or family head earning a small income, a child learning in a class, and a family accessing healthcare. Integration transforms waiting into living, as displacement is about lives in limbo, not just about numbers and logistics. With integration, refugees should live like part of the community until they are resettled.
Uganda, a fellow African country, has shown that community integration works, as refugees there are allowed to work and have been given access to land. This reduces dependency on aid and improves relations with host communities. Starting with Waterfalls, the same can be done in Zimbabwe on a smaller scale.
This can allow children to learn at schools like Hermann Gmeiner and hospitals like Parktown Hospital to open their doors to refugees through special partnerships with government and international agencies. Studies have shown that when refugees are integrated, they tend to contribute positively to local economies and enrich cultural diversity.
“We do not want to be a burden, we want to live, to work, and send our children to school,” are the universal voices of the refugees. Keeping them confined in inadequate situations only deepens their dependency and despair, yet all they want is to belong. Meeting their aspirations requires community cooperation and international solidarity.
Integration is about justice; it is about recognising that every refugee has the right to rebuild their life despite the unforeseen challenges they face. As the world faces rising displacement from conflict, solutions to build a better tomorrow must be practical and humane — and that is what integration brings. Despite facing economic challenges, Zimbabwe has displayed compassion by hosting displaced people.
By embracing integration, it can turn temporary survival into lasting dignity, meaning the Waterfalls Transit Centre should not remain a place of waiting, but a bridge to hope. Every day spent behind the walls of a refugee camp is a life destroyed, potential wasted, hope lost, and trauma deepened. In the end, it is not about whether Zimbabwe can afford to integrate refugees, but whether
we can afford not to. With integration, the transit centre will become a symbol of shared humanity and resilience.
Watungwa and Njovo are students of International Relations, Africa University, Zimbabwe
