As South Africa counts down to a self-imposed June 30 deadline for all undocumented migrants to leave the country, the nation has become a landscape of fear for thousands of foreign-born residents. What started as a series of mostly peaceful public protests led by anti-migrant groups and opposition political actors has erupted into widespread targeted intimidation, pushing even documented refugees and long-term residents to flee their homes and seek voluntary repatriation to their home countries.
One of the thousands living in crisis is Esnat Joseph, a 36-year-old Malawian mother of one-year-old triplets. Sitting in an open-air Durban field where as many as 7,000 displaced foreigners have gathered over the past two weeks, the mother struggled to calm her crying infants as she recalled the armed attack that forced her family from their informal settlement home. “A group of 10 South African men showed up at my door carrying machetes and whips, telling me we had to go back to our country,” Joseph explained. “They grabbed my husband, cut his head and neck, holding his throat like they intended to kill him. By the grace of God he survived, but he is still recovering in a hospital.”
Joseph, who moved to South Africa three years ago to work as a domestic servant before having her children, lost her passport and immigration paperwork in a robbery three years ago, leaving her with no formal legal status. Like hundreds of other Malawians stranded in Durban, she has signed up for a repatriation bus organized by the Malawian consulate, which has arranged voluntary departures with funding from public donations. She is far from alone: over the past four weeks, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zimbabwe have all organized air and bus repatriation efforts, with roughly 3,500 foreign nationals having already chosen to leave South Africa voluntarily. South African authorities confirm that more than 500 recently repatriated Nigerians were in the country without valid documentation.
Benjamin, a Nigerian returnee who arrived in Lagos last week after living nine years in South Africa, summed up the sentiment of many who have left. “South Africans do not welcome foreigners, especially Nigerians,” he told the BBC. “It is a place where your life can be taken at any moment, it is not safe to stay.”
The June 30 deadline was first put forward by a coalition of anti-migrant groups including the organization March and March, as well as opposition party ActionSA. Marchers carrying wooden sticks have taken to streets across the country for months, chanting the Zulu phrase *Mabahambe*, which translates to “They must go.” Organizers reject accusations that their movement is xenophobic, arguing that they are pushing for enforcement of existing immigration laws and policy prioritization for South African citizens. “If you enter the country on a 30-day visitor visa and stay for 50 days, two years, even five years, you know you are breaking the law,” March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma told reporters at a Durban rally. “South Africa cannot become a refugee camp for every struggling state on the continent. Every country puts its own citizens first, and we demand our government does the same.”
Protesters’ anger is rooted in deep-seated economic hardship that has plagued South Africa for years. Official government data puts national unemployment at 32.7%, one of the highest rates in the world, with 350,000 jobs lost in the first quarter of 2026 alone, most held by young workers. Protesters argue undocumented migrants strain already overstretched public services, taking scarce jobs, education seats and hospital access from native citizens. “We fight to get our own kids into school, we struggle to get our elderly into hospital beds,” Mecha Ramorola, a protester at a Pretoria march, explained. “Scarce resources should go to South Africans first.”
Despite this economic context, the current wave of tension has also been amplified by political opportunism, analysts note. South Africa is set to hold local government elections this coming November, and multiple parties have weaponized migration anxiety to win votes. A widely debunked claim that South Africa holds 15 million undocumented migrants, first pushed five years ago by ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba (who is currently campaigning to become mayor of Johannesburg), continues to circulate on social media. “Political parties are scraping the bottom of the barrel, lying to voters that all of South Africa’s problems can be fixed by getting rid of migrants,” said Sharon Ekambaram, a human rights lawyer with the movement Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia. “This scapegoating has a long history in our politics, and it always gets worse around election season.”
Worryingly, the current tension has echoes of past waves of deadly xenophobic violence that have struck South Africa: in 2008, anti-migrant riots killed 62 people (including 21 South African citizens) and displaced thousands more, with further outbreaks in 2015, 2016 and 2019. Just last month, the Mozambican government reported that five of its citizens had been killed in anti-foreigner attacks in Western Cape province, a claim South Africa’s foreign minister disputed, saying only two Mozambicans died and investigations into the circumstances are ongoing.
Social media has played a major role in amplifying hostility in recent weeks. Viral videos showing protesters harassing foreign nationals have spread widely, including one clip of a Ghanaian man being ordered to leave the country that prompted the Ghanaian government to summon South Africa’s ambassador to demand improved protections for Ghanaian citizens. Another viral video features prominent anti-migrant activist Nkosikhona Ndabandaba, a Facebook creator with 1.4 million followers who is known publicly as Phakel’umthakathi, approaching a Congolese man at the roadside. Without asking for proof of his immigration status, Ndabandaba politely told the man: “June 30 is the deadline. You don’t have to wait until then. Leave now.” Ndabandaba has amplified fears further by warning that he cannot control public anger after the deadline passes.
Critically, even foreign nationals with valid legal status in South Africa are being targeted. Dozens of documented refugees have camped outside Durban’s Home Affairs department to seek government protection. One Burundian mother of four, who has official refugee status, said she has been targeted regardless. “I have all the valid paperwork proving I can stay here, but we are all being chased out,” she said, wrapping herself in a blanket to ward off the southern hemisphere winter chill. “I fear for my life, my children are terrified. We get insulted just walking down the street, my kids get bullied even at school.”
Even long-term residents with deep roots in the country live in fear. A Malawian beauty therapist who has lived in Cape Town for 16 years (and who does not have formal legal status) said even routine trips to the grocery store have become intimidating. She, her husband and their nine-year-old daughter were recently confronted by their Uber driver, who demanded to see their immigration papers and questioned their origin because of their accent. Her daughter has stopped attending school entirely because of the family’s fear of attack. She says she supports President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plans to reform immigration policy, but stresses that all people, regardless of status, deserve to be safe. “My child can’t even go to school because we are terrified,” she said. “We don’t know what will happen next.”
President Ramaphosa has pushed back against the intimidation and scapegoating, warning in a recent national address that no individual or group has the right to demand proof of nationality from people in public spaces, and that the government will take action against vigilante harassment. “There is no place for xenophobia, racism, intolerance of any kind in South Africa,” he said, unveiling a five-point plan from his coalition government to address the migration crisis. The plan includes rejecting asylum claims from people who have already passed through other safe countries, introducing quotas for citizenship naturalization, expanding digital identity systems for non-citizens, and imposing jail sentences for employers that hire undocumented migrants for below-minimum wage work.
Analysts say the policy targeting of underpaid informal work reflects a longstanding pattern of exploitation. “You see undocumented migrants taking jobs that South Africans won’t accept, paying less than the legal minimum, because migrants are desperate and open to exploitation,” noted Professor Shepherd Mpofu, an immigration analyst. Ramaphosa’s plan also includes cracking down on systemic corruption within South Africa’s border and immigration system, a problem that is well-documented. One 36-year-old Malawian salon owner in Johannesburg, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, told the BBC she has been paying border officials bribes every few months for years to get her passport stamped without having to leave the country. She has now closed her salon and plans to return to Malawi to keep her young children safe.
In Johannesburg, the government’s enforcement campaign, called Operation New Broom, has already resulted in the bulldozing of hundreds of informal roadside shops that officials say are mostly run by undocumented migrants, which they label hotbeds of criminal activity. During a recent visit to the area, Ethiopian migrants watched in horror as their life’s work was demolished, even after advance warning from authorities.
Across the country, the growing pressure has left all foreign-born residents feeling trapped. Even the third-largest political party, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) led by former President Jacob Zuma, which holds major support in KwaZulu-Natal, has stopped short of endorsing the June 30 deadline but backed the movement’s core anti-undocumented migrant stance. “We all agree that undocumented migrants are breaking the law, they must leave the country peacefully without violence or intimidation,” MK member Bonginkosi Khanyile said.
Still, fear is tangible nationwide. Long lines of vehicles are backed up at border posts with Mozambique as foreign nationals rush to leave before the June 30 deadline. Back at the open displacement camp in Durban, where aid groups have been distributing blankets and food to thousands of displaced people, terrified Malawian migrants can’t wait to leave. When the first repatriation bus pulled in on Sunday, crowds cheered and chanted the Zulu phrase *Siyahamba*, meaning “We are leaving.”
