William has lived in South Africa for about three decades. He migrated there from Kenya in 1996, built businesses, married a national, and raised a family. He owns and operates a shop in the country, which he was sure had become home.
That certainty is now shadowed by fear. He is one of thousands of immigrants facing a resurging wave of xenophobic hostility that has swept across South Africa in recent months.
“It has changed a lot about our daily lives. There’s a limitation to how foreigners move; they don’t go outside except when necessary, because of fear,” William told Amjambo Africa, asking to be addressed by just his first name for his safety.
Since March 2026, anti-immigrant groups such as March and March and Operation Dudula have mobilized locals, carrying out protests across provinces. In some cases, these protests have turned violent, with immigrants being directly attacked.
The groups gave immigrants until June 30 to leave South Africa. Since the deadline elapsed, groups have been protesting every Thursday, insisting that they will continue that way until all foreigners are gone.
Xenophobia or Afrophobia?
The developments in South Africa have been condemned by the country’s government, the United Nations, and Human Rights Watch. However, anti-immigrant violence is far from new in South Africa.
Scholars trace xenophobia in the country as far back as the early 1990s, though large-scale attacks began in the late 2000s. According to Xenowatch, more than 1,300 incidents of violence against immigrants have been documented in South Africa since 1994, resulting in more than 690 deaths, 128,000 displacements, and the looting or destruction of thousands of businesses.
In every major wave of attacks, the victims have mostly been Africans, prompting many researchers to argue that “Afrophobia” more accurately describes what is happening. “Xenophobia refers to people who are not citizens. It’s not specific to a particular racial identity. If we take a look at March and March, they’re not targeting white foreigners at all. Why is that? And nobody can answer,” Sadhana Manik, a researcher and academic who studies xenophobia, told Amjambo Africa.
The deadliest wave of attacks on South Africa’s immigrants occurred in 2008, when at least 62 people — mostly from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, and Somalia — were killed, and thousands more displaced. Subsequent attacks in 2015 and 2019 again left people dead, injured, and displaced, with migrants from across the continent among the primary targets.
The current ongoing wave is reported to have claimed at least 13 lives, including five Ethiopians, five Mozambicans, two Nigerians, and one Ghanaian. Several countries have since evacuated their citizens.
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Tragic contradiction
For many Africans, these attacks in South Africa represent a sad contradiction. Across the continent and on social media, many remember how African nations rallied behind South Africa during its apartheid liberation struggle.
Countries like Zambia, Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, Botswana, and Zimbabwe provided refuge for exiled freedom fighters and activists. Nigeria became one of the loudest international voices against apartheid, while Ethiopia provided Nelson Mandela with travel documents in 1962, enabling him to move across Africa while evading restrictions imposed by the apartheid state.
“Some countries paid the supreme price of laying down their lives as intel officers, some used their bodies to help transport sensitive materials, and some of them were ultimately killed,” Philip Olayoku, coordinator of the West African Transitional Justice Centre, told Amjambo Africa.
Yet Olayoku argues that many South Africans simply do not know this history. The story of apartheid’s defeat, he said, has been centered almost entirely on Mandela as an individual, erasing the solidarity of the continent from the record.
“The documented stories across Africa, especially when it comes to the present moment, have been altered by the variants of narratives that we have proliferating on digital media and online platforms, such that the core of these efforts is not being properly documented the way they ought to have been transmitted across generations,” Olayoku said.
Monica Akokuwebe, a scholar at Nigeria’s University of Ibadan who recently left South Africa, agreed with Olayoku. “This variation is not unusual, as historical memory often differs across generations and communities,” Akokuwebe said. “The experience highlights the importance of continuing to share and teach these histories, not only to honour past sacrifices but also to strengthen mutual understanding in the present.”
Olayoku highlighted that frustrations fueling xenophobia are rooted in unresolved inequalities that survived apartheid. About 32 years after the system collapsed, South Africa’s minority white population — roughly 7% of the country — still controls over 70% of agricultural land and lives in largely separate neighborhoods.
According to Manik, South Africans have every right to be angry. “This anger and violence are symptoms of deep levels of dissatisfaction with the government, but it is being misdirected at foreigners who are soft targets instead of the politicians,” she said. “Access to quality water is the problem. South Africa has been experiencing an energy crisis and load shedding. We know that corruption is the problem.”
“Governance crisis”
While leaders of anti-immigrant groups have repeatedly claimed that their protests are targeted at irregular migrants in the country, even those who are fully documented have not been spared. Many African immigrants who own shops have seen their businesses forcefully shut or even looted by protesters, who accuse them of taking jobs and economic opportunities.
“Before these demonstrations started, foreigners used to open their shops around 6 a.m. and close around 10 p.m. But nowadays, we open around 8 a.m. and then close the main doors, only selling from a small window, and closing before 6 p.m., due to fear of what could happen at any moment,” William said.
According to Cristiano d’Orsi, an expert in refugee and migration law, anti-immigrant sentiments and demonstrations in South Africa are largely a fallout of economic frustration. “[South Africans] were made promises when the country was freed from apartheid; promises that have not been kept. Today, you still have a huge unemployment rate among black South Africans; many of them are having to do odd jobs and live in conditions that are not what they were promised,” d’Orsi told Amjambo Africa.
By the end of the first quarter of 2026, South Africa’s unemployment rate stood at 32.7%, with more than eight million citizens unemployed. According to d’Orsi, protesters are mainly those who want the low-skilled jobs foreigners work but who do not have the means to obtain these jobs.
“This issue should be treated as a governance crisis,” d’Orsi said. Research by the International Organization for Migration has found that many migrant-owned businesses employ both foreign nationals and South Africans, challenging claims that immigrants simply take jobs from locals.
“I’m not seeing Afrophobia directed to the educated who are foreigners. I’m seeing it unfold in township areas — where Ethiopians, Somalians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis have opened these little shops to provide basic groceries for the community, and they are highly successful. And then they are being targeted,” Manik said.
Silence from regional blocs
Although several African governments have condemned the latest mobilization, human rights groups and experts have blamed demonstrations and attacks on the failure of the South African government to address anti-immigrant sentiments.
“Currently, there hasn’t been much that the government has invested in alleviating Afrophobia in the country,” Manik said.
Regional blocs, including the African Union, Southern African Development Community, East African Community, and Economic Community of West African States, had not publicly taken a leading role on the issue at the time of this reporting. Olayoku believes the hesitation reflects the economic and diplomatic priorities that often shape regional institutions.
For migrants like William, however, the debate is less about diplomacy than survival. After many years in South Africa, he has no plans to abandon the life he has built. But as tensions increase across the country, uncertainty hangs over families like his, who are left wondering what comes next.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the early August 2026 print edition of Amjambo Africa.
