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20-06-2026
PRETORIA: South Africa has become a hostile place for undocumented migrants, as a deadline set by protesters for them to leave the country approaches.
“I am very scared and traumatized,” Esnat Joseph, a 36-year-old Malawian woman, told media as she tried to comfort her crying one-year-old triplets.
She fled her home in an informal settlement in the port city of Durban, in KwaZulu-Natal province, seeking refuge in an open field where up to 7,000 foreigners – mainly Malawians began gathering with their belongings two weeks ago.
“The people came to my house and told me: ‘You must leave. We don’t want you people to stay here any longer, so you have to go to your country.’ There were 10 and they were carrying weapons,” she said, describing how the group of South African men were holding machetes and whips.
“They cut my husband on his head and his neck. They were holding his neck like they wanted to kill him. Because of God he still survived, but he’s in the hospital.”
Many others at the field, where aid groups have been giving out blankets and food, report such door-to-door intimidation.
It follows a series of mainly peaceful protests this year led by the anti-migrant group March and March, opposition party ActionSA and others which have set 30 June as the deadline for undocumented migrants to leave.
Sticks in hand, the marchers have been chanting “Mabahambe”, a Zulu phrase meaning “They must go”.
As the countdown continues, President Cyril Ramaphosa warned South Africans on Tuesday that the “scapegoating of vulnerable people” was not the solution to country’s complex economic challenges.
Joseph came to South Africa three years ago and was working as a domestic servant before having her children.
Her legal status is not clear, she says she lost her passport and other paperwork in a robbery. She aims to go back to Malawi on one of the buses the Malawian consulate has been arranging with the help of donations for its desperate citizens to leave Durban. Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zimbabwe have also been organizing repatriations by air or bus over the last few weeks with about 3,500 foreigners volunteering to leave so far.
The South African authorities said the more than 500 Nigerians recently repatriated had been in the country illegally.
Arriving in Lagos last week after nearly nine years in South Africa, Benjamin, a returnee who only gave his first name, told media: “South Africans don’t like foreigners, especially Nigerians. South Africa is not a place to be, it’s a place you can lose your life at any time.”
Protest organizers deny their actions are xenophobic. They say they are sick of other Africans abusing the system and, as March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma put it, “playing the victim card”.
“If you come into South Africa with a passport that allows you to stay for 30 days. When its 50 days, when it’s two years, when it’s five years, you know you’re breaking the law,” she told media at one protest in Durban.
“We can’t have South Africa being turned into a refugee site for all failed African states… every country prioritizes its citizens and we want the South African government to do the same.”
Latest figures show South Africa is home to more than three million foreigners, about 5% of the population most from neighboring countries in southern Africa but the statistics do not record the many more migrants believed to be in the country without papers, a bone of contention for the protesters. (Int’l News Desk)
