Zimbabweans who fled political turmoil and poverty at home are returning to their country in droves - terrified of another outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa.
Foster Baloyi, 26, who has worked on a farm in Groblersdal for nine years, was camped yesterday on the side of the road at the Musina border.
He had spent the past three days there with his eight-month-old daughter, wife and three brothers in an old bakkie loaded with belongings - with no money or petrol to get to Zimbabwe.
"We don't want to take chances with our lives. The community said they will burn us if we don't go. We just packed our things and left," he said. The family has been surviving on oranges.
Hunched dispiritedly on suitcases and piles of bedding, people camped on the N1 highway outside Cape Town this week, hoping to hitch truck rides to Johannesburg.
Refugees, workers and NGOs fear more xenophobic attacks after the World Cup in a repeat of the 2008 flare-up that claimed more than 60 lives and left thousands displaced in refugee camps.