South Africa says it will reopen 20 of its land border crossings on Monday that were closed last month to try to avoid the spread of infections with Covid-19. The decision was made on Saturday at a cabinet meeting. A second wave of outbreaks linked to a new strain of the disease has struck South Africa hard. Nearly 1.5 million infections and more than 47,000 Covid-related deaths have been reported - the highest toll in Africa by far.
According to America's Johns Hopkins University, more than 108 million cases have been confirmed worldwide since the beginning of the epidemic late in 2019, with almost 2.3 million deaths. The government declared on Saturday the opening of borders with Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini.
"The active and orderly management of people through our borders is an important part of the country's overall risk adjusted approach to control the spread of Covid-19," Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi said. But the minister cautioned that all those wishing to cross borders would produce evidence of the recent negative Covid tests. After the new variant of Covid-19 was detected, South Africa closed its borders with neighbouring countries on 11 January.