The images from Johannesburg’s Alexandria township told a familiar story: burning shacks, shattered storefronts, people carrying belongings on their heads fleeing into the night. But the targets this time were not property. They were people, specifically people who had come from other African countries in search of work, safety, and opportunity.
Over the past three weeks, at least 14 incidents of violence against migrants have been recorded across South Africa’s Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, according to the Human Rights Commission. At least three people have been killed and dozens more injured. Hundreds of foreign nationals have been displaced from informal settlements, their homes torched by mobs that locals say are defending territory and jobs they believe have been stolen by outsiders.
President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation on Wednesday, calling the violence “unacceptable” and promising a “stronger response” from law enforcement agencies. He said the government would intensify operations against those inciting violence and ensure that victims received protection and support.
“South Africa has for decades been a home to people from across our continent and beyond,” Ramaphosa said in a televised address. “That tradition of hospitality and solidarity is being tested, and we must meet that test with the full weight of the law.”
A Problem That Runs Deep
The current wave of attacks has drawn comparisons to similar incidents in 2008, 2015, and 2019, when mobs attacked migrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and other countries, killing hundreds in some cases. In each instance, the violence was followed by promises of action, and in each instance, the underlying conditions that produce anti-migrant sentiment, the concentration of poverty in townships, the failure of local governments to provide basic services, the perception that foreigners are competing for scarce resources, have remained largely unchanged.
Economists and social researchers point to a structural problem: South Africa’s formal economy generates insufficient jobs for its own citizens, and when millions of people are locked out of economic opportunity, the resulting frustration tends to find a target. Foreign nationals, many of whom work in informal sectors that local workers spurn, become convenient scapegoats for deeper anxieties about housing, safety, and survival.
“Xenophobia is not an identity,” said Dr. Sarah Thompson, a researcher at the University of Cape Town who studies migration and social cohesion. “It is a symptom of failure. When the state fails to provide security and opportunity, people look for someone to blame. The stranger in the township is an easy answer.”
A Regional Dimension
The crisis has not gone unnoticed across the continent. The African Union has called for solidarity with affected migrants, and several governments, including Nigeria, which evacuated hundreds of its citizens from South Africa during the 2015 attacks, have issued travel advisories warning their nationals about the risks of travelling to certain areas.
Nigeria’s High Commission in Pretoria said it was monitoring the situation closely and preparing contingency plans in case evacuations became necessary. Ghana, Zambia, and Kenya have all issued similar warnings to their citizens resident in South Africa.
The political dimension of the crisis is also significant. South Africa’s governing African National Congress faces local elections in less than two years, and the party’s competitors, including the Inkatha Freedom Party and several independent civic groups, have seized on concerns about immigration to position themselves as defenders of South African workers against foreign competition.
Ramaphosa, who has made economic growth and job creation the centrepieces of his second-term agenda, finds himself caught between the demands of a political base that is increasingly hostile to migrants and the reputational cost of being seen as complicit in violence against some of Africa’s most vulnerable people.
The International Dimension
The White House’s recent decision to expand third-country deportation programmes has added another layer of complexity. The United States has been deporting undocumented migrants, including many from countries with large diasporas in South Africa, back to their home nations, which then have to manage the reintegration of citizens who may have spent years working abroad.
Some analysts see a connection between the expansion of deportation flows and the tension in South African townships. When large numbers of returning nationals arrive suddenly in communities that lack the infrastructure to absorb them, the resulting friction can sharpen local grievances against foreign nationals who remained.
For now, the immediate priority is security. The government has deployed additional police officers to affected areas and established temporary shelters for displaced migrants. But as the fires cool and the displaced return to rebuild what they can, the question of how South Africa handles its relationship with its immigrant population remains as urgent as ever.
“We did not come here to cause problems,” said a Congolese woman who gave her name only as Marie, sitting in a community hall in Johannesburg where she had taken refuge. “We came here to survive. Just like everyone else.”