 JOHANNESBURG: Over 160,000 illegal immigrants have fled South Africa after thousands of citizens took to the streets demanding foreigners leave, as hundreds of thousands of South Africans have followed many in the West in turning against the government for poor border controls, and perceived inaction.
One South African organization claims there are up to 30 million illegal immigrants in a country whose documented citizens number around 63 million. These immigrants, mostly undocumented, are blamed for rampant crime, taking jobs and overrunning hospital wards and places in government schools.
In some cases, groups have gone house-to-house in areas such as Soweto, near Johannesburg, giving deadlines for immigrants to go home. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that 900 people were arrested during a day of nationwide protests. While the protests were largely peaceful, police were called to disperse violent protesters in some areas of the country. One death was reported in the Johannesburg area.
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Some illegal immigrants have taken buses and left, or been repatriated on flights provided by their home countries across Africa. On one such flight to Ghana in June, the South African border authority said 321 of the 332 Ghanaians who tried to leave Johannesburgs OR Tambo International Airport were found to be in the country illegally.
Up to five immigrants have been killed by protesters so far this year, but the most prominent anti-immigrant civic group in South Africa, the March and March movement, claims that it is against violence. It is their followers who march the countrys streets, often with large traditional sticks called knobkerries, encouraging foreigners to leave.
Their founder and leader, Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, told Fox News Digital “Weve had enough,” claiming the number of illegal immigrants living in South Africa is “between 15 and 30 million, and that’s an arguable number because everyone is always debating what the actual number is.”
The number 30 million is contentious. The only official published figures are from a census taken in 2022 by Statistics SA, queried by some critics because the organization is controlled by the ANC government, under attack for reportedly causing the illegal immigration crisis and therefore seen to be benefiting from low statistics. The body claims there are up to three million immigrants in the country, but Ngobese-Zuma points out this figure includes people who have documents “they’re just using the numbers from those who were admitted to being in the country legally.”
Immigrants have frequently been seen running away when requested by officials, including Stats SA officials, to show their documents. The head of Statistics SA, Risenga Maluleke, even admitted to the local Eyewitness News that his officials dont check information on the occasions that they can find immigrants, saying “when people say I was born outside South Africa, we take what they say because we have not had a way of proving it other than relying on what they say.
Ngobese-Zuma added, “The country is being invaded, and we decided to do something about it. There’s too much crime going on at the hands of foreign nationals. The actual truth is that a lot of them go unfound because nobody knows who they are. They’re not on r
