South Africa under fire over handling of migrant violence

Nigeria has become the latest African country to arrange evacuation flights from South Africa, with 262 Nigerian citizens repatriated in the first group on Thursday.

The Nigerian government has chartered four other flights over the next two weeks. According to Nigeria’s Foreign Ministry, 1,092 Nigerians have so far registered to leave South Africa voluntarily, News.Az reports, citing RFI.

Zimbabwe, Ghana, Mozambique and Malawi have already repatriated hundreds of their citizens in recent weeks.

Since April, a series of anti-immigration protests have led to attacks on foreign workers in the rainbow nation. As unemployment hovers above 30 percent, angry locals claim other Africans are taking their jobs.

“Migrants are made scapegoats,” post-apartheid South Africa specialist Cécile Perrot told RFI. Amid endemic poverty and unemployment, they are blamed for worsening standards of living, she said, while social media amplifies hate speech and fuels the anger.
South Africa, which has long been a destination for both legal and undocumented African workers, has faced recurring waves of xenophobic attacks since 2008, when dozens of migrants died and thousands were displaced.

In the latest spate of violence, two Mozambicans were killed and hundreds of people injured.

'No consequences'
“The government in South Africa is not taking drastic measures against the people responsible for xenophobic violence in the country,” said Smart Nwobi, president of the Nigerian Union South Africa association.

“Ordinary citizens here go up to foreign nationals and ask to see their papers. Then, they take the law into their own hands. They are not the police! And they face no consequences for their actions,” declared Nwobi, a lawyer who acts as a liaison between the Nigerian embassy and Nigerian nationals in South Africa.

He claimed some police officers were siding with anti-immigration groups.

“Some police officers are marching with those groups. While they have a constitutional right to their opinion, to march, it cannot come at the cost of other people’s rights,” he told RFI.

According to Nwobi, foreign nationals who failed to show ID to civilians demanding to see it have been beaten up. He also alleged that the police turn a blind eye to such violence.

Not everyone fleeing South Africa is an undocumented migrant. People with legal refugee status have also been swept up in the unrest – such as Christian Tchizungu, originally from Bukavu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

He was forced to abandon the beauty salon he and his wife ran in Durban. A South African employee has since taken over the premises.

"We can't go back home because of the situation there. And we can't stay here either. They're going to kill us. I've lived here for 20 years. I know these people. If the government and the United Nations don't do something for us, we're going to be killed,” he told France 24.

News.Az 

By Ulviyya Salmanli