“We are not safe, so we had to leave.” Emmanuella Akagbosun said it in Lagos, a 44-year-old who moved to South Africa in 2017 and came home this month. She had shared a shop with her sister there. Anti-migrant protesters ransacked it and looted the goods, and she feared she would be killed if she stayed.
Her story is one of thousands. On Tuesday, marches against undocumented migrants took place across South Africa, and police said more than 900 people were arrested. The protests were mostly peaceful but sometimes turned to violence and looting.
What police reported
Tebello Mosikili, a deputy national police commissioner, briefed reporters. Of the 120 marches that day, 108 passed peacefully, she said. Officers had to step in at the other 12.
The arrests covered several offences. Some of those held were undocumented migrants detained for breaking immigration rules. Others faced charges of public violence, harboring illegal immigrants or robbery. Overnight, reinforcements went to five of the nine provinces to deal with scattered looting. Soldiers were also sent to Hillbrow in Johannesburg to back up the police.
The marches were timed to a “deadline” that an anti-immigrant movement had announced for undocumented migrants to leave the country. They followed months of unrest that has drawn international criticism, with foreigners driven from their homes and their businesses and property vandalized.
The movements and their critics
March and March, Operation Dudula and Progressive Forces are the best-known groups pushing against illegal immigration. President Cyril Ramaphosa has rejected their claim that migrants are to blame for South Africa’s social and economic troubles. On Monday night he met leaders of some of the groups and asked them to demonstrate peacefully.
Ngizwe Mchunu, one of the protest leaders, told The Associated Press that illegal migration had fed a spread of illicit drugs. He also objected that immigrants from other African countries run so many informal neighborhood shops, which he said should belong to South Africans. “It’s a very sad story that we have been telling our government since the dawn of democracy that illegal immigration here is out of hand,” he said. “It is time for our government to put South Africa first.”
Amnesty International South Africa disagreed. In a statement from executive director Shenilla Mohamed, the group said migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are wrongly blamed for unemployment, inequality and weak public services. Those problems, it argued, come from the legacy of apartheid, lasting inequality and failures in the asylum system. Scapegoating foreign nationals, the group warned, lets the government off the hook, and misinformation and xenophobia could fuel more violence.
Leaving
Thousands of migrants, mostly from neighboring Zimbabwe and Malawi, gathered at their embassies and consulates to ask for transport home. Buses carrying migrants have made the Beitbridge checkpoint on the Zimbabwe border busier over the past few days. Thousands of Malawians have also returned from a temporary repatriation center in Durban.
Nigerians have gone too. Three groups flew back this month, including 271 people who landed in Lagos on Tuesday. Nigerian officials said 632 have been repatriated so far, out of more than a thousand who registered for the voluntary program, and more flights are expected in the coming days.
Fintan Opara, repatriated after 18 years in South Africa, said most Nigerians there no longer feel welcome.
