Sources on the ground in Johannesburg confirm that the clock is ticking for thousands of undocumented migrants. The South African government’s ultimatum to leave the country by the end of the month has triggered a wave of vigilante violence, with armed gangs patrolling the streets of Alexandra township. One resident, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, told me: “They came with machetes. They said we have to go back to Zimbabwe or they will kill us.”
This is not a spontaneous eruption of xenophobia. This is a manufactured crisis. Leaked documents from the Department of Home Affairs reveal a policy of deliberate neglect: a failure to process asylum claims, a slashing of budgets for refugee shelters, and a quiet directive to local police to look the other way. “They want a purge,” a former official told me. “They want to show the electorate they are tough on immigration, but they don't want the blood on their hands.”
The numbers are staggering. An estimated 2 million undocumented migrants live in South Africa, most from Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Mozambique. The deadline is 31 March. After that, the government has said it will begin mass deportations. But sources inside the police force say they lack the resources to carry out such an operation. “We don’t have the vans, the holding cells, or the manpower,” one officer admitted. “This is a recipe for disaster.”
The real story here is the money. Who profits from the chaos? I spoke to a businessman in the transport sector who told me that private security firms are already being contracted to “escort” migrants to the border. “It’s a gold rush,” he said. “The government will pay them per head.” The contracts are opaque, awarded without tender. I have seen bank records suggesting that millions of rand have been funnelled to a shell company registered in the Seychelles. The trail leads back to a senior figure in the ruling ANC. He denies any wrongdoing. His lawyer sent me a cease and desist letter.
The violence is spreading. In Pretoria, a Somali-owned shop was firebombed last night. Two people are in hospital. The attackers were chanting “foreigners go home.” The police arrived after the blaze was out. The shopkeeper, a father of three, told me: “We have nowhere to go. Our application for asylum has been pending for three years. They don't care.”
The international community is silent. The African Union issued a tepid statement calling for calm. The British Foreign Office says it is “monitoring the situation.” The US State Department has not commented. Meanwhile, the blood of the poor is being traded for political points.
This is not a story about immigration. It is a story about power. About the cynical use of fear to distract from a collapsing economy, a corrupt government, and a ruling party that has lost its moral compass. The migrants are not the problem. The problem is a system that profits from their suffering.
I have seen this before. In Kenya, in Myanmar, in the refugee camps of Calais. It always ends the same way. The weak are sacrificed. The powerful get richer. And the world looks away.
But I am not looking away. I will be on the ground, following the money, tracing the bodies. The deadline is 31 March. The countdown has begun.
