AS XENOPHOBIC VIOLENCE RESURFACES, SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT WATCHES ON

On 30 June 2026, anti-immigrant protests took place across South Africa. The protesters, some of whom carried sticks and spears, took part in the march to mark an unofficial deadline anti-migrant groups had set for undocumented foreigners to leave the country.

In Durban, South Africa’s third largest city, Sharon* and her family were threatened with being set alight if they did not return to their home country, Zimbabwe. The increased pressure from the protesters forced the Zimbabwean family to abandon their carpentry workshop and return home after 10 years in South Africa.

‘We just had to leave behind most of our tools and the life we were building for ourselves,’ she told FairPlanet in a WhatsApp chat. ‘The trauma of seeing our fellow Africans being attacked simply because we are not South Africans [is unbearable]. A taxi [ride] that takes 40 minutes [sometimes] feels like four hours because one has to endure listening to insults from South Africans and smile in silence so they don't see that you are a foreigner.’

The June demonstration happened just nine weeks after members of anti-immigrant groups, the March and March movement and the Abahambe movement, held placards during a protest on 28 April, calling on the government to take action against illegal immigration in South Africa.

The protesters say illegal immigration is largely responsible for crime, housing shortages, and the unemployment rate which rose to 32.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 from 31.4 per cent in the last quarter of 2025. The Southern African nation is home to over 65 million people, with over three million migrants in the country, the majority of whom are from neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Immigrants in South Africa are mostly employed in sectors such as domestic work in private households, construction, wholesale and retail trade, transport, factories, commercial farms, mining, hotels and restaurants. Some migrants own and run informal businesses such as hair salons, smartphone repairs, and stalls selling fruit and vegetables.

But contrary to the claims of anti-immigrant groups, available data suggest that ‘South African-born workers remain the clear majority in every major sector’, including the informal businesses. Besides, migrants’ businesses have benefitted South Africans with one immigrant worker generating approximately two jobs for local citizens, according to a 2018 World Bank report.

Yet, anti-immigration sentiments have triggered xenophobic attacks in the country. In April, a video in which South Africans were seen attacking a Ghanaian national and asking him to return to his country went viral.

A Major Human Rights Issue

Resentment against immigrants is not unique to South Africa. According to the United Nations, the estimated global number of international migrants was 304 million in 2024. Often, these migrants are ‘highly vulnerable to racism, xenophobia and discrimination.’

In South Africa, xenophobic attacks against foreigners, especially fellow Africans, date back to 1994. Foreign nationals have been beaten, displaced, killed, and their businesses looted, amid low arrest and prosecution rates. Between 2022 and 2024 alone, Xenowatch, an open-source system that tracks xenophobic violence in South Africa, recorded 255 xenophobic incidents across the country, including 57 deaths, more than 6,000 displaced people, and over 800 shops looted.

Prince Devison Nze, executive director of Human Rights and Justice Group International, explained that these attacks violate the rights of migrants and that they breach international laws such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

‘Xenophobic attacks in South Africa are a major human rights issue because they violate the rights to life, dignity, equality, security, and freedom from discrimination of migrants and foreign nationals,’ he said. Additionally, Nze said these attacks are ‘criminal acts’ and that the perpetrators ‘should be prosecuted’.

South Africa itself experienced human rights violations during the apartheid system, which lasted for 46 years under the all-white government from 1948 to 1994. During this period, the country experienced racial segregation, in which non-white South Africans, who make up the majority of the population, were required to live in separate areas and even utilised separate public facilities from the minority whites.

But since the formal end of the apartheid system in the country, South Africa has suffered repeated bouts of violent anti-immigrant attacks targeting mostly Africans. Humphrey Quaye, head of the Pan-African Progressive Front, a Ghana-based organisation coordinating and supporting progressive movements across Africa and the diaspora, told FairPlanet in an interview that attacking African migrants is ‘sobering’ to the pan-African spirit that unites the continent.

He explained that South Africa's liberation struggle gained massively from the continent’s solidarity. For example, Tanganyika (now Tanzania) was the first haven for South Africans who fled after the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960, when police shot dead 69 protesters, leaving 180 ‘seriously wounded.’

But post-apartheid, South Africa seems not to regard Africans with that same spirit. In fact, vigilante groups have emerged to help South Africans advance their xenophobic agenda. Operation Dudula, for example, launched in Soweto in 2021, is now actively calling for a mass deportation of undocumented migrants. The isiZulu word Dudula means ‘push back’, implying pushing foreign nationals out of the country.

Part of the responsibility this group has saddled itself with is deciding who accesses public facilities like schools and health clinics, with foreigners often turned away. In one notorious instance, a one-year-old baby died after his Malawian mother was prevented from entering the Alexandra Clinic in Johannesburg in July 2025.

Quaye said that Operation Dudula is gradually gaining traction while the government silently watches on. ‘When a government fails to arrest, prosecute, and decisively condemn vigilante groups that usurp state functions, it signals either complicity or incapacity,’ he explained.

Frank Onyekwelu, president-general of the Nigerian Citizens Association South Africa, told FairPlanet in a call that the association has engaged the South African government multiple times through dialogue. The dialogues, however, have not yielded desired results as xenophobic violence continues.

‘Nationality is not criminality,’ said Onyekwelu, whose church in Johannesburg, where he pastors, was attacked, with musical equipment stolen in June.

Rising Diplomatic Tensions

In April, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights condemned the xenophobic attacks and urged the South African government to ‘take decisive measures to dismantle and prevent the operation of vigilante groups engaging in unlawful enforcement activities.’

The attacks strained diplomatic relations between South Africa and other African nations. Ghana even wrote to the African Union demanding that the body discuss the issue at its next summit, noting that xenophobic violence poses a ‘serious risk to the safety and well-being’ of Africans in South Africa.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian government summoned South Africa’s Acting High Commissioner in Abuja and demanded an investigation into the death of two Nigerians killed by security operatives in April. While Nigeria first evacuated 268 of its citizens from South Africa on 11 June, Ghana repatriated 297 Ghanaian citizens on 26 May.

‘Home is good because we are safe,’ Sharon told FairPlanet in a WhatsApp chat. ‘The only problem is [inadequate] funds to bring back our tools from South Africa and get new materials to start work.’

Quaye admits that repatriation is a necessary emergency response. However, he said it is not a solution. ‘It is a symptom management tool,’ he argued. ‘If we only ever bring our citizens home when they are attacked and send them back when the dust settles, we are complicit in a cycle of abuse.’

Instead, Quaye said African nations must come together to apply diplomatic pressure and negotiate ‘a Dignity Protocol’ that establishes minimum standards for the treatment of African migrants in any African state and is enforceable by the African Union.

Although the South African government has ‘taken a firm stance’ against violence targeting foreign nationals, it refused to publicly recognise attacks on foreigners as xenophobic, insisting that the demonstrations are a result of broader migration tensions in the country.

But Quaye believes not recognising these attacks as xenophobic is a deliberate political attempt to avoid accountability.

As violence against foreign nationals continues, Nze warned that xenophobic attacks could be normalised and might morph into a humanitarian crisis that might be difficult to contain.

‘The South African government is still applying a cosmetic approach to the whole issue,’ Nze told FairPlanet. ‘If unaddressed, the violence could escalate into mass displacement, loss of life, and collapsed community relations.’