South Africa’s Border Management Authority has documented over 50,000 migrants leaving the country in the past year, the new agency Ground Up reported on Wednesday.
Authorities described the tens of thousands fleeing “since the wave of xenophobia started,” referring to an ongoing campaign by anti-migrant groups to remove foreigners from the South African economy to benefit locals. South Africa has experienced a dramatic rise in anti-migrant sentiment that escalated to deadly mob violence throughout June, fueled by popular sentiments that the radical leftist government of President Cyril Ramaphosa has advanced policies that offer immigrants advantages over South Africans. Many protesters lament that setting up a small business or obtaining a job with a reasonable wage has become nearly impossible while in competition with large numbers of legal and illegal migrants in the economy.
In response to the threat, thousands of citizens of neighboring African countries such as Malawi and Zimbabwe have sought to return home. The South African government requires them to be processed through various entry centers, which has created high-pressure situations where communities of thousands of migrants live in unsanitary and dangerous conditions in tents outside of some processing centers while they wait to be let home. The surge in the number of foreign nationals seeking legal repatriation followed the imposition of an unofficial deadline by violent anti-migrant groups, who insisted all foreigners must leave the country by June 30 or potentially be killed.
The 50,000-person departure estimate published by Ground Up is double the number that South African authorities estimated had been “repatriated” as of June 30. Census statistics estimate that about 2.4 million foreign nationals were living in South Africa as of 2022.
Ground Up cited as its source Mmemme Mogotsi of the Border Management Authority, who noted that the majority of those leaving are from Zimbabwe and Malawi and have passed through a “temporary repatriation centre” in Musina. Ground Up described the Musina site featuring large tents, “boreholes… to provide water, and mobile toilets.”
Reports on the conditions at repatriation centers indicate that even the prodigious numbers of individuals leaving South Africa may be low relative to the migrant demand to return spurred by fears of being targeted by anti-migrant mobs. In mid-June, violence erupted at an area being used to house migrants facing repatriation in the city of Durban when the migrants organized a protest demanding to be sent home more rapidly. An estimated 10,000 people were stuck at a public park waiting to be processed, the migrants complained, and in the process remained vulnerable to attack and lacked basic provisions.
The situation in Durban did not appear to have improved significantly as of this week. South African news outlets reported that a camp of about 400 people had sprouted outside of a “refugee reception center,” many of those there describing themselves as essentially being forced out of their communities by threats from locals but unable to return home as the government had not processed them. This group, News 24 reported, were almost entirely legal immigrants to South Africa who were fleeing because they did not trust the violent mobs to distinguish between them and illegal immigrants. Some testified to being approached by neighbors and threatened to leave their homes and businesses as soon as possible, including some cases where the locals beat them with sticks to emphasize the danger they faced if seeking to exercise their legal right to remain in the country.
“Hundreds of people still remained at the giant empty lot in Durban on Monday, where Malawians flocked for safety ahead of protests due on Tuesday to mark the deadline,” South Africa’s Times Live reported on June 30, the anti-immigrant groups’ deadline for migrants to leave. “Although they say they target only illegal immigrants, the vigilantes often don’t discriminate, and many migrants whose status is entirely legal have been attacked or had their property trashed.”
June 30 was a turbulent day for South Africa, marked by dozens of anti-immigrant protests nationwide attracting thousands of people and resulting in at least 900 arrests. Durban notably organized one of the largest rallies led by protesters dressed in Zulu clothing and shouting anti-immigrant slogans in isiZulu.
Speaking to local outlets, protesters and supporters of the anti-migrant movement expressed hope that repatriating foreigners would create more opportunities for them.
“I run a fried chips shop in the inner-city and I’m struggling to keep my customers, let alone make enough profit. Illegal foreign nationals must go,” one business owner told Times Live. “If illegal immigrants continue to occupy our land, we will never move forward. The poor get poorer and the rich get richer.”
Organizers of the large June 30 protests announced that day that they would continue to march in the streets until the government took more aggressive measures to limit immigration.
“Every Thursday, for the next six months, we are marching until they [undocumented immigrants] are gone,” protest organizer Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma announced on June 30 at the march of Durban.
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