African nations warn citizens in South Africa as anti-immigrant violence rises

Warning messages from across Africa have turned South Africa’s anti-immigrant unrest into a regional diplomatic problem. Kenya, Malawi, Lesotho and Zimbabwe have told their nationals in South Africa to stay alert, and in some cases remain indoors, as attacks on foreigners intensified in parts of the country. Ghana has gone further, pressing the African Union for a broader response as violence and threats against migrants spread beyond a local security issue.

The unrest has tapped into a deep economic fault line. Rights groups and migrant advocates say foreigners are being scapegoated for anger over jobs, crime and failing public services, with unemployment still biting hard across South Africa. Statistics South Africa said the jobless rate was 31.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025, a level that helps explain why anti-immigrant politics has found fertile ground in towns and cities from Johannesburg to Pretoria. For Black South Africans, who are disproportionately affected by unemployment, the frustration has often been channeled toward undocumented migrants.

That pressure has repeatedly spilled into violence over nearly two decades. South Africa saw major xenophobic outbreaks in 2008, with later waves in 2015 and 2019, and the current unrest follows a familiar pattern: economic strain, political agitation against migrants and then attacks that force foreign governments to intervene. Operation Dudula, a vigilante movement that has campaigned against undocumented migrants and at times blocked them from public health facilities, has been a prominent part of that climate.

The diplomatic response sharpened on Tuesday when Mozambique’s President Daniel Chapo met President Cyril Ramaphosa and called for calm. The South African presidency said the two leaders wanted a more coordinated regional effort to address mass migration in Africa and agreed that South Africa is not xenophobic. That message was meant to reassure neighbors, but it also underscored how quickly domestic unrest has become a continental concern.

Ghana has pushed the issue furthest at the multilateral level. Its foreign ministry formally petitioned the African Union Commission on May 6 to place xenophobic attacks in South Africa on the agenda of the bloc’s mid-year coordination meeting, scheduled for June 24 to 27 in El Alamein, Egypt. For Pretoria, the stakes are larger than policing a few flashpoints: continued violence threatens South Africa’s standing as the continent’s largest economy and a central diplomatic player, while also testing how far regional solidarity can hold under economic stress.