Migrant Encampments Expand Across South Africa Amid Escalating Anti‑Immigrant Sentiment

A street corner in the coastal city of Durban has turned into a scene of desperation.

Thousands of migrants gather around colorful plastic sacks, boxes and trash bags filled with salvaged belongings. Women cradle babies beneath blankets. Vendors sell solar‑powered phone chargers and potato chips. Portable toilets, large green water tanks and makeshift showers made from gray tarps constitute the only sanitation.

Residents of this encampment, like a few that have appeared across the country, have been stranded for days or weeks after anti‑immigrant activists demanded that undocumented foreigners depart South Africa by Tuesday or face unspecified repercussions.

The activists have not clarified what they intend for immigrants who remain after the deadline, yet the threat has prompted thousands of migrants, primarily from other African nations, to flee South Africa.

Some migrants have sought assistance from consulates to depart, straining foreign missions and South African immigration officials who are racing to process paperwork for families, many of whom are undocumented. Mob attacks have already targeted numerous immigrant homes and businesses.

Fearing for their safety as the deadline looms, thousands of migrants awaiting departure have taken to sleeping outside government offices, foreign missions, and, in Durban, an old park just a block from a scenic Indian Ocean beach.

“It is a looming humanitarian disaster and the state authorities appear asleep at the wheel,” said Dale McKinley, an immigrant‑rights activist in South Africa. “This is outrageous.”

The government has attributed the unfolding crisis to years of migrants allegedly exploiting the nation’s immigration policies.

South Africa, the continent’s richest nation, does not place refugees in camps but permits them to integrate into society. However, many immigrants manipulate the refugee system to remain longer, said Deputy Home Affairs Minister Njabulo Nzuza, while others who arrive for economic reasons often overstay their visas.

Since 2008, South Africa has confronted repeated waves of deadly xenophobic violence, frequently blaming immigrants for the nation’s high unemployment and crime. Yet the country has never witnessed such large, spontaneous migrant encampments sprouting on city streets, Mr. Nzuza observed.

The largest camp emerged weeks ago when thousands of Malawians began sleeping in a park within a residential suburb of Durban while awaiting repatriation by their government. Police at one stage clashed with the migrants and fired tear gas.

About a week later, those Malawians were relocated to an old fairground. Large white tents have been erected on a vast paved lot encircled by barbed‑wire fencing. Inside, aid organizations are delivering food and medical care. However, overwhelming demand forces thousands of Malawians to wait outside before being admitted for processing and transportation back to Malawi.

The government reported that at least 8,000 people were present at the camp, and that at least 7,000 Malawians had already been repatriated.

Updated

June 26, 2026, 3:06 pm ET

On Thursday afternoon, Charles Paul, a Malawian, reached through an opening in the fence to caress his two‑month‑old son, Kwakhanya, who was strapped to the chest of his girlfriend, Sanelisiwe Nxili.

It was nearly time to say goodbye. After seven years in South Africa, Mr. Paul, 24, has chosen to return to Malawi due to the threats against foreigners. Ms. Nxili, 23, is South African and will remain behind with their child, but she too is anxious about what lies ahead.

The family survived on Mr. Paul’s monthly salary of about $365 as a carpenter. Ms. Nxili said she would need to send her son to live with her mother so that she could seek employment.

‘They must not chase them all away,’ Ms. Nxili said of the anti‑immigrant activists threatening migrants in South Africa. ‘They must document them.’

Even those who are in the country legally say they are not being spared. At another camp in Durban, hundreds of refugees have been crammed onto a sidewalk in front of a home affairs office. Most of the refugees say they were attacked by South Africans who ordered them to leave the country, even though they are in the country legally as refugees.

Government officials have told those in the camp that they must return to their communities or be taken to an immigration detention center. The refugees have refused, arguing that neither option is safe.

On a recent evening, children bounced on foam mattresses on the sidewalk beside a convenience store while their mothers sat wrapped in blankets. Cars sped past on the busy road as 37‑year‑old Valerie Ngabo contemplated the unthinkable: returning to her war‑torn village in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

She has been in South Africa since 2008, and during a prior wave of xenophobic violence in 2015, the mother of four was forced to sleep outside for six months, she said. More recently, she said, South Africans attacked the hair salon she owns, beat her and her colleagues and told them to leave.

She said life might be better in Congo.

‘There is no hope,’ Ms. Ngabo said, adding that she had been approved for U.S. resettlement in 2024 but has been unable to proceed after President Trump froze the refugee program when he took office last year. ‘There is nowhere I can go,’ she said.

Gladys Irakoze, 26, was born in South Africa to refugee parents from Burundi. She always believed she could blend in among South Africans, but that is no longer possible, she said. Conditions have become so hostile toward immigrants that even her 10‑year‑old son has been threatened by his classmates.

Ms. Irakoze, who is also staying in the camp, said she no longer recognizes her country. ‘I didn’t expect this to actually happen in South Africa,’ she said.

Source link