Another wave of xenophobia in South Africa

Your Proximities deep dive

Hello everyone,

Today, Ghana said it was evacuating 300 of its citizens from South Africa, with a spate of protests and xenophobic attacks on foreigners continuing.

Last week, as covered in Proximities, Kenya, Malawi, Lesotho and Zimbabwe advised their nationals in the country to stay indoors.

And the Nigerian government, as it has during previous bouts of violence, offered to repatriate its citizens, with 130 immediately agreeing to go.

It’s far from the first round of protests and horrific attacks on foreigners that has hit South Africa. So what’s behind it and where is it going?

A Q&A below.

Bests,

Barry.

PS: Reminder for new subscribers that there’s an archive of more than 30 deep dives here.

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What has been happening recently?

The current wave of attacks and demonstrations has been going on for close to a month. Marches took place on April 25 in Johannesburg, the capital Pretoria, and other towns and cities. Organized by the anti-immigrant group March and March, the demonstrations were also joined by similarly right-wing groups, such as Operation Dudula and political parties ActionSA and the Patriotic Alliance.

The campaigners blame foreigners for a faltering economy in which more than 30 percent of people are unemployed, most of them from the Black population, saying that migrants compete for jobs and disproportionately commit crime.

Migrant rights groups respond, as they have done for years, that immigrants are being unfairly scapegoated for government failings.

In addition to the demonstrations, mobs have attacked foreigners and some have been killed. They have also blocked people from entering health clinics.

The targets are largely from neighboring countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Lesotho but others come from as far away as Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, attracted, despite sky-high levels of unemployment, by the continent’s most industrialized country and largest economy.

You said it’s not the first time

Far from it. This has been happening for at least two decades, arguably longer.