A recent spate of anti-foreigner attacks in South Africa have left 10 dead and nearly 400 arrests made, South African police confirmed on Sept. 5.
South Africa’s president condemned days of widespread looting and arson attacks on foreign-owned businesses across Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria, calling the violence “totally unacceptable.”
“We are a country that is completely committed against xenophobia,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a video statement published on Twitter Tuesday “We do not allow and cannot tolerate attacks on people from other African countries.”
Anti-immigrant violence in South Africa are not new. According to the website Xenowatch, which tracks such incidents, more than 500 attacks occurred between 1994 and 2018. The attacks seem to flare-up periodically; more than 100 attacks in 2008 left more than 60 people dead, and more than 70 attacks occurred in 2015.
The reason for the anti-foreigners attacks is still very shady with many saying it is the frustrations with the country’s high unemployment rate, which sits at about 29 percent. South Africa is home to about 3.6 million foreign nationals who make up about 7% of the population. The majority — about 70% — come from the neighboring countries of Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Lesotho, the BBC reported.
“It’s a mixture of denialism and displacement,” Patrick Bond, a professor of political economy at the University of the Witwatersrand Wits School of Governance told Aljazeera.
“Government has failed to solve local problems so it’s easier to allow people to think it’s the immigrant’s fault. Shifting the responsibility for poverty and squalor somewhere else while being somewhat surprised when this turns bloody and violent.”
South Africa’s former deputy minister of police, Bongani Mkongi, claimed that residents of the Hillbrow neighborhood of Johannesburg are 80% foreign born.
“We cannot surrender South Africa to foreign nationals,” he said. “That is a matter of principle. We fought for this country, not only for us, but for generations of South Africans.”
Anger against foreigners dates back decades, said Jean Pierre Misago, a researcher at the African Center for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg told VOA.
Because of the oppressive restrictions of apartheid, black people were forced to live in poor areas known as townships. When immigrants arrived and looked for business opportunities, they often found that these same townships were the only places where they could afford to open shops.
This bred anger and resentment. “They say, ‘You are taking our business. You are undermining our businesses. We are now competing with you for scarce jobs and scarce resources. And we don’t want that,'” Misago told VOA.
Another stereotype against immigrants by South Africans is that foreigners are often behind the drug-dealing and many other ills facing the nation. South Africa Foreign Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor in an interview with eNCA on Thursday alleged that Nigeria nationals are mostly behind this.
“The belief that our people have in reality that there are many persons from Nigeria who are dealing drugs in our country, who are harming our young people,” Pandor said adding that “I believe that Nigeria nationals are involved in human trafficking and other abuse of our practices.”
Nigerian leaders have since rejected the claim by Pandor. Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama criticised Pandor for sharing such “outrageous stigmatisation.” Nigerian House of Representatives Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila Pandor was trying to “change the true narrative” of the xenophobic attacks in South Africa as a conflict between “gangs fighting for turf.”
Nigerian House of Representatives Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila Pandor was trying to “change the true narrative” of the xenophobic attacks in South Africa as a conflict between “gangs fighting for turf.”
The attack has since prompted reprisal attacks on South African affiliated companies in other African countries. In Nigeria, several outlets of South-Africa affiliated businesses including retailer Shoprite and telecoms operator MTN have been targeted around the country. In response, MTN has since shut their offices in Nigeria.
Nigerian government recalled its ambassador to South Africa Wednesday and pulled out of the World Economic Forum Africa Summit in Cape Town. The government also offered to send an aircraft to evacuate nationals willing to return “free of charge”.
There are reports from local media in Zambia as to how Zambians attacked outlets of South-Africa owned businesses.
Zambia has also cancelled a friendly football match with South Africa due to take place in Lusaka on Saturday while its government also warned its lorry drivers to “avoid travelling to South Africa until the security situation improves” following the reported looting and torching of trucks and intimidation of foreign truck drivers.
In a statement, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned “the heinous act of violence perpetrated against foreigners including our citizens in South Africa”. It also warned its citizens to “distance themselves from any confrontation and conflict”, close their shops if possible and avoid going out wearing expensive jewellery.
Social media was awash with messages against the violence using the hashtag #SayNoToXenophobia.
In an interview with VOA’s Peter Clottey, Godrich Gardee, the general secretary of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters political party, said the killing of Africans by other Africans is unacceptable and must be punished. The Guardian has reported that South Africa’s President has come out once again (Sept. 16) to condemn these attacks.
This article was researched and written for The Fulda Gap by Timileyin Omilana, a Nigerian‑based writer and journalist covering terrorism, conflicts, development, and social innovation in Nigeria and across Africa.
Edited by Blake Vincent.
