JOHANNESBURG. Under a grey sky and the watchful eye of armoured police vehicles, thousands of South Africans took to the streets of Pretoria and Durban on Friday in the largest anti-migrant demonstrations in years. Chanting ‘They must go home’ and ‘South Africa for South Africans’, the protesters accused foreign nationals of stealing jobs, inflating rents and fuelling crime in the country’s beleaguered townships.
The marches, organised by the newly formed Operation Dudula movement, drew a mixed crowd: young men in football shirts, elderly women in Sunday hats, and a smattering of trade unionists. ‘I’ve been without work for three years,’ said Thabo Mokoena, 34, a former construction worker from Soweto. ‘Employers prefer migrants because they work for less. My children are hungry while foreigners live here in numbers.’ His sentiment was echoed across the crowds, where unemployment stands at 33 per cent, the highest in the world.
Police minister Bheki Cele confirmed the deployment of 3,500 officers to prevent a repeat of the 2021 xenophobic attacks that left dozens dead and thousands of shops looted. ‘We will protect all people in South Africa, citizen or not,’ he told reporters. But many protesters dismissed the police presence as an attempt to ‘protect illegals’. ‘The government is working for them, not us,’ said Nomsa Dlamini, a street vendor from Alexandra township. ‘We are the ones suffering.’
The protests come as the ruling African National Congress struggles with a collapsing economy and internal divisions ahead of next year’s elections. Analysts warn the anti-migrant sentiment is a dangerous distraction from South Africa’s real problems: structural inequality, failing public services, and a political class that has lost touch with the working poor.
In the central business district of Durban, shopkeepers boarded up their windows. Many migrant-owned businesses, particularly from Zimbabwe, Somalia and Pakistan, closed early. ‘We are scared. Every time this happens, we lose everything,’ said Ahmed Farah, a Somali shop owner. ‘We have lived here 20 years. We pay taxes. Our children are South African. But we are always the target.’
Meanwhile, the SA Federation of Trade Unions called for calm, arguing that the protests were stoked by ‘populist politicians and old apartheid tactics of divide and rule.’ The federation warned that scapegoating migrants would not create jobs or lower the price of maize meal, a staple that has risen by 25 per cent in the last year.
By late afternoon, the marches remained largely peaceful, save for a few scuffles on the outskirts of Pretoria. But the anger simmering beneath the surface suggests this is not a flash in the pan. As one protester, a middle-aged woman named Grace, put it: ‘We are not violent. But we are desperate. And desperate people do desperate things.’
The government has promised to review immigration policies and crack down on illegal border crossings. But for the workers on the street, talk is cheap. What they want is a job, a home, and a country that remembers its own people first.
