An atmosphere of terror has gripped migrants across South Africa as an unofficial deadline to leave the country is fast approaching.
Armed vigilantes, violent community sweeps, and a highly coordinated social media campaign have left thousands of immigrants fearing for their lives.
The crisis centers around an arbitrary June 30, 2026 deadline. Set by prominent anti-immigration group March and March alongside allied vigilante movements, the decree demands that all undocumented migrants in South Africa voluntarily pack up and leave the country.
While the deadline is entirely unofficial, the violence on the ground is brutally real. Over the last few weeks, major cities including Durban, Johannesburg, and Pretoria have seen residential blocks and foreign-owned workplaces violently targeted by civilian mobs.
Survivors, many of whom are said to be legal migrants in South Africa, have come forward with harrowing accounts of the targeted sweeps.
A Malawian woman, Esnat Joseph, while speaking with the press said a gang of men came to her home in Durban to threaten the family – forcing her to flee with her triplets.
“I am very scared and traumatised,” Esnat Joseph, a 36-year-old Malawian woman, told the press.
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 was holding machetes and whips.
“They cut my husband on his head and 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 in 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 the country’s complex economic challenges.
Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe have also been organising 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, although this was disputed by the Nigerian authorities.
Arriving in Lagos last week after nearly nine years in South Africa, Benjamin, a returnee told the press that: “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.”
In another case, a Ghanaian man was harassed by protesters telling him to go home, which prompted Ghana to summon South Africa’s ambassador to demand better protection for foreign nationals.
Also, another widely shared video shows prominent protester Nkosikhona Ndabandaba, popularly known as Phakel’umthakathi, who has 1.4 million followers on Facebook, approaching a man standing by the roadside and asking him his nationality.
When he replies that he is Congolese, Ndabandaba – wearing his trademark Zulu headdress – tells him in a polite tone but without inquiring about his legal status: “30 June is the deadline, but it’s not that you have to leave on 30 June. Leave now.”
Similarly, a Burundian woman, speaking with the press said: “I have my own document that recognises my refugee status in South Africa, but all of us are still being chased away.
“I am very afraid for my life. The children are afraid. There is no respect. When you pass by here, you are insulted. The children are insulted even at school,” she said as she wrapped herself in a blanket to shelter from the cold of the southern hemisphere winter.
Meanwhile, protest organisers 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”.
She said: “If you come into South Africa with a passport that allows you to stay for 30 days. When it’s 50 days, when it’s two years, when it’s five years, you know you’re breaking the law.
“We can’t have South Africa being turned into a refugee site for all failed African states… every country prioritises its citizens and we want the South African government to do the same.”
Protesters, like Mecha Ramorola, also point to the country’s strained public services with South African “people fighting for scarce resources”.
“We are struggling to get our children into schools. We are struggling to get our old people into hospitals,” Ramorola told the BBC during a march in the capital, Pretoria.
