Undocumented migrants in South Africa are racing toward a 30 June deadline set by protesters, and for Esnat Joseph the pressure has already turned into fear at home. The 36-year-old Malawian fled her house in Durban in KwaZulu-Natal after men carrying machetes and whips came to her door and told her and other foreigners to leave the country.
Joseph said she was trying to comfort her crying one-year-old triplets when she spoke about what had happened, saying she felt scared and traumatised. She said the men cut her husband on the head and neck, and that he later went to hospital. Her family is now among the foreigners who have been pushed into temporary gathering points as the deadline closes in.
Up to 7,000 foreigners, mainly Malawians, started gathering in an open field in Durban two weeks ago with their belongings, while aid groups have been giving them blankets and food. The pressure has also fed repatriation efforts elsewhere, with about 3,500 foreigners volunteering to leave so far and Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zimbabwe organising returns by air or bus over the last few weeks.
The campaign has been led mainly by March and March, ActionSA and others, and marchers have been chanting Mabahambe. President Cyril Ramaphosa warned South Africans on Tuesday that scapegoating vulnerable people was not the answer to the country’s economic problems, but the protests have still spread fear among migrants who say the demonstrations, though mainly peaceful, have also been accompanied by door-to-door intimidation and attacks with machetes and whips.
Joseph came to South Africa three years ago and worked as a domestic servant before having her children. She said she lost her passport and other papers in a robbery, which is part of the problem facing many people who now have to decide whether they can prove they are in the country legally before 30 June. That deadline is being enforced by protesters, not by any formal state repatriation process, leaving many foreigners to rely on buses arranged by consulates or to leave on their own.
The scale of the pressure is difficult to pin down because the public target is broad: South Africa is home to more than three million foreigners, about 5% of the population, and most are from neighbouring countries in southern Africa. The result is a fast-moving mix of fear, selective departures and disputed claims over who is undocumented, with South African authorities saying more than 500 Nigerians recently repatriated were in the country illegally, while Nigerian authorities rejected that account.
For Joseph, the immediate question is whether she can get herself and her children onto one of the buses being arranged by the Malawian consulate. For thousands of others in Durban and beyond, the next step is starker: leave before 30 June, or wait to see whether the threat that brought them out into the open field hardens into something worse.
