(CNN) -- Roughly etched onto Brian's arm is a swastika tattoo. Brian's sinister-looking tattoo is etched into his skin The 11-year-old says his 10-year-old friend Temashi spent two days "scratching" the image onto his skin with a match stick. It only hurt a little bit, said Brian, one of thousands of Zimbabwean children who have fled their ravaged homeland for what they hope will be a better life in South Africa. For Brian and his friend, the symbol of the swastika does not represent the horrors of Hitler and the Holocaust. Instead, they say the ominous jagged lines on their arms mean "Germans never surrender."
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25 percent of Zimbabwe's population has fled the nation, humanitarian groups say
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In November, 1,016 kids traveled to South Africa, social workers say
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Most children say they leave due to hunger, poverty, non-functioning schools
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Boys work in South African farms, beg on streets; girls become prostitutes, maids
Their days are spent waiting in line, jostling alongside hundreds of Zimbabwean adults, trying to apply for political asylum at a makeshift center opened by @placeholder authorities.