South Africa: Thousands Flee As Anti Migrant Protests Grow

In South Africa, Thousands Flee as Anti-Migrant Protests Grow SOUTH AFRICA South Africa For months, thousands of anti-immigrant protesters with sticks and signs have been marching through the streets of Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town and other South African cities chanting “Abahambe” (“they must go” in Zulu) and ‘arresting’ those they deem immigrants. The demonstrators have attacked foreign-owned businesses, chased people from their homes and stopped foreigners from entering clinics and hospitals. They set a deadline for foreigners to leave, or else. Some immigrants are listening. Thousands of Malawians, Zimbabweans and other Africans have begged their countries to rescue them. Some countries, such as Nigeria and Ghana, alarmed at the spiraling violence over the past few months – the demonstrators have already killed at least four foreigners – have already moved quickly to repatriate their citizens. For those foreigners who are still in the country, fear is rising. “They tell me to go back to my country – I can’t, I still remember what happened to me,” Bona Mapezi Bahati, 33, who is eight months pregnant, told NPR, describing how she fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a teenager 15 years ago after being gang-raped by members of a militia in the war-torn nation. “My kids are scared,” she added from her home in a Johannesburg slum. “I’ve told them if the protesters come, you must run away and hide because there’s nothing I can do. I feel so sad, especially as I’m pregnant, I’m scared they’ll kill me. It’s like I’m in Congo. I feel like it’s a war zone here.” Late last month, thousands of South Africans held the biggest demonstrations yet against migration since 2008, when anti-immigrant protesters killed more than 60 people. One of the leaders of a protest group called March and March, is a former radio presenter from Durban named Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma. She says it’s time for South Africans to take back their country. “South Africa will be great again,” she said. “It just needs all of us to rise and defeat our enemy.” Other groups participating, such as Operation Dudula, (“force out” in Zulu) have joined in, as have some political parties with an eye toward local elections later this year. They all say immigrants have promoted crime and stolen jobs from South Africans in a country where the unemployment rate tops 30 percent, and more than 60 percent among 15-to-24-year-olds, and violent crime rates are some of the highest in the world. They argue foreign nationals are burdening already strained public services. Ngizwe Mchunu, one of the protest leaders, told the Associated Press that he blamed illegal migration for a proliferation of illicit drugs in South Africa and says informal neighborhood shops run by immigrants should all be owned by South Africans. “It’s a very sad story that we have been telling our government since the dawn of democracy that illegal immigration here is out of hand,” Mchunu said. “It is time for our government to put South Africa first.” South Africa, one of Africa’s largest economies and a nation of 63 million people, has long attracted migrants seeking work or refuge. Official data puts the migrant population at 3.1 million, or about 4.1 percent of the population, while anti-immigration groups claim there are roughly as many undocumented migrants, although there are no official figures. Meanwhile, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has tried to calm the protests. He has promised to tighten borders, crack down on undocumented immigrants, and address the economic grievances. “We recognize that many communities are frustrated by crime, unemployment and pressure on public services,” he said recently. “The roots of these challenges lie primarily in inequality, slow economic growth and weaknesses in service delivery. Addressing these challenges requires practical solutions, not the scapegoating of vulnerable people.” Analysts say the country’s problems largely stem from years of poor governance, corruption, industrial decline and weak growth following the end of apartheid in 1994. They add that the president is correct when he notes that the anti-immigrant backlash is a result of the inequality that is a legacy of apartheid. More than three decades after that system was dismantled, the inequality it entrenched has endured. South Africa’s economy is still dominated by wealth and ownership patterns that heavily favor the White minority. Meanwhile, much of the Black majority still lives in poverty, with limited job opportunities and growing disillusionment with a democracy many feel has failed to deliver. Researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg found that less than 4 percent of formal jobs are held by foreigners, adding that even giving every foreign-held job to South Africans would cut unemployment by only six points. “The question is not whether these grievances have merit. They do. It’s whether immigrants are, in fact, responsible for them,” they said. That’s cold comfort for migrants like Top of Form 38-year-old Nyirenda from Malawi, who’s been in South Africa since he was 22 and works as a gardener. He’s not waiting around for the situation to calm down. He got the message after two men threatened him last month. “They asked me: ‘When are you going to leave the country? We want to fix our country. If you don’t leave now, you’re going to leave in a coffin…,’” he told CNN. “They (the protesters) only have energy (to target) fellow poor Black Africans,” he added. “But why fight someone who is hungry like you while leaving the ones who have taken all your wealth?”