They fled economic meltdown and repression under Robert Mugabe’s brutal regime. But yesterday, under the cover of darkness, the first mass repatriation of Zimbabweans in South Africa began.

A convoy of buses left in silence, taking home 700 victims of the xenophobic attacks that have engulfed South Africa’s poor townships. There was little hope or excitement as the passengers climbed aboard at Germiston, a satellite town ringed with illegal squatter camps where the poorest migrant workers had lived until their neighbours turned against them. Such was the venom meted out on them that mothers with sleeping children strapped to their backs, husbands who had left children and wives, skilled and unskilled were ready to return to a country riven by political violence.

“It is better to be killed by my young brother than to be killed by someone I do not know,” said Douglas, 28, a mechanic from Harare. “I was beaten here and lost everything I worked for for two years.”

As he talked about the 80 per cent unemployment in his home country and the prospect of voting in the presidential run-off election on June 27, three burly men in leather jackets appeared out of the night. From now on the agents of Mr Mugabe’s regime would never be far from Douglas. Yet he felt he had no choice but to return.

The same was true of John, 32, who had spent 15 years in the Tokoza township. He married a South African and was a proud father. But a mob wielding clubs and knives drove him from his home. “I ran away and had to leave my wife and kid. Imagine how terrible it makes me feel being forced to leave the people I love,” he said. But when the men in leather jackets appeared, his tone changed. “Given the opportunity I have been given by my Government, I will go home a happy man,” he boomed. “I want to equate this journey to the journey made by the Israelites to the Promised Land.”

More than 60 foreigners were killed and 650 wounded in two bloody weeks as locals accused immigrants of taking their jobs and houses and of fomenting crime. Many fled with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. Others managed to salvage at least something. Peter had retrieved the window frames and metal grills from his home. “I have decided to build another house in Zimbabwe,” he said, scant reward for nine years spent repairing his neighbours’ mobile phones. “Maybe I can find a place to carry on the same project. I believe in hard work. I do not expect the Government to find me a job.”

Simon Khaya Moyo, Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Pretoria, was there, handing out blankets to those shivering under a star-filled night. “Land will be provided for those who want to be settled on the land. Food will be provided and the social amenities to get them reintegrated into their communities,” he promised.

Asked how a government that is struggling to pay key workers could afford to finance a resettlement programme, he answered: “We must find money for that. Things are hard everywhere, not just in Zimbabwe.” But things are about to get even harder for families who rely on remittances from the three million Zimbabweans thought to be living in South Africa.

The Red Cross reported that thousands of Zimbabweans had fled to Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana. Until yesterday there had been no mass movement back home. The violence has achieved one thing that President Mugabe could not: it has slowed the exodus from his country to a trickle.

- President Mugabe flew to Rome last night to attend this week’s UN world food summit. On his first trip abroad since the elections in March, Mr Mugabe was accompanied by Grace, his second wife, and Rugare Gumbo, the Agriculture Minister. About 60 world leaders will be at the meeting.

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