South Africa arrests more than 900 in anti-migrant protests

South African police arrested more than 900 people after anti-migrant protests swept the country on Tuesday, a wave of unrest that was mostly peaceful but still left shops looted and at least one person dead. Deputy national police commissioner Tebello Mosikili said 120 marches were held nationwide, 108 passed without incident and 12 required police intervention.

The demonstrations were organized by a coalition of more than 20 civil society groups, including the March and March movement, which had promoted an unofficial 30 June deadline for undocumented migrants to leave South Africa. Police said the arrests covered immigration violations, public violence, harboring undocumented migrants and robbery.

The sharpest violence came in Johannesburg’s Alexandra township, where police said one person was shot dead late Tuesday as residents looted informal corner shops owned by foreign nationals. In Durban, officials opened an inquest into the death of a foreign national who jumped from the eighth floor of a building on the eve of the protests because he believed he was being targeted. Security forces were deployed across five of South Africa’s nine provinces overnight, and soldiers were sent into Johannesburg’s Hillbrow neighborhood after violence and shootings in the neighborhood.

Anti-immigrant anger in South Africa has long been tied to jobs, crime and access to services. The latest marches carried that same mix of economic grievance and xenophobic rhetoric. A Human Sciences Research Council poll found only one in six adults would welcome all foreigners, while StatsSA’s 2023 survey put migrants at 3.1 million, about 4.1% of the population.

South African government officials urged peaceful protest on 30 June and said they appreciated citizens who exercised their constitutional right responsibly. President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed illegal migration and anti-foreigner protests on 7 June, warning against xenophobia while acknowledging public concern over undocumented migration.

In 2008, xenophobic violence erupted in Alexandra and spread nationwide, killing at least 62 people, injuring more than 670 and displacing over 100,000, according to UNHCR figures. The current flare-up began in April and intensified through June, with thousands of foreign nationals already fleeing or seeking shelter, many of them from Zimbabwe and Malawi, before Tuesday’s deadline arrived.