South Africa Migrant September 30 Deadline: Two Days of Fear

Bishop Raphael Bahebwa has lived in South Africa for 26 years after arriving as a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This week he is in hiding. "I am in hiding now because they say they are going to kill me for speaking about the rights of foreigners," he told Al Jazeera, with two days left before the South Africa migrant September 30 deadline. Across Durban, refugees say they fear a new wave of attacks, and many doubt their papers will protect them, because hostility on the street rarely begins with a request for documents.

March and March, the anti-immigration movement that has led protests across South Africa all year, has called for undocumented foreign nationals to leave the country and warned of bigger demonstrations if its demands are not met. Movement leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma announced the September 30 cutoff on August 17 outside the Durban International Convention Centre, according to African Quarters. Another leader, Sphelele Shinga, has said activists expect up to one point five million people to join the next major demonstration. "You should know that all the communities are gathering up again," Shinga said. "They are waking up, they're standing up for their home, standing up for their country." The group describes the coming mobilization as the second wave of its June 30 National Day of Action.

Durban braces for Wednesday

The September 30 deadline has raised the prospect of renewed large-scale demonstrations in Durban, Africa News reported. The fear is grounded in recent history. The June 30 marches drew tens of thousands of people across South African cities, and xenophobic unrest linked to those protests claimed four lives. An estimated one hundred seventy-eight thousand foreign nationals are reported to have left South Africa in the weeks that followed, while policing, deportation and repatriation operations tied to the June demonstrations cost the state around six hundred million rand, according to figures shared with parliament. Weekly protests have continued in Durban, where the movement gained momentum earlier this year.

Peace activists have stood beside the migrants. Ela Gandhi, a former member of Parliament and the granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, joined refugees at a Durban demonstration and condemned the protesters' rhetoric. "The rhetoric that these people are using is completely untrue," Gandhi said. "It's not the migrants that are causing the problems that they talk about." For months, refugees slept outside the Home Affairs office in Durban while their documentation was being verified. Princess Adjei, a Ghanaian refugee, described conditions there: "We can't keep sleeping on the streets forever as well. People have died because of sleeping on the street." Some migrants have since been moved hundreds of kilometers away. Others are trying to settle in the same communities they once fled, unsure what Wednesday will bring.

The government's tightrope

Pretoria has paired enforcement with warnings. The government's Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration says authorities processed more than eighty-six thousand foreign nationals for deportation and repatriation between June 14 and August 20, with Malawians the largest group, followed by Zimbabweans and Mozambicans. Government data says ninety percent of those repatriated had entered South Africa illegally, while ninety-five percent crossed the border outside official ports of entry. At the same time, officials have repeatedly warned private groups against taking immigration enforcement into their own hands and stressed that the March and March deadline carries no legal force. The government says ordinary citizens cannot deport anyone, but as the June 30 precedent showed, a deadline does not need legal authority to frighten people.

President Cyril Ramaphosa responded after the deadline was announced, saying South Africans should feel ashamed of the mistreatment faced by nationals from other African countries. "We cannot preach integration at summits and practise exclusion in our streets," he said, according to African Quarters. Ngobese-Zuma dismissed the remarks as insufficient, insisting the government still has no clear plan for undocumented migration.

For refugees, the stakes are more personal than political. Bahebwa told Al Jazeera he sees electoral politics behind the campaign. "They are scapegoating us as foreigners," he said. "It is not going to end on September 30. It has to do with the elections." Going home is not an option for many either. Muyumba, a Congolese refugee, told Al Jazeera there is no safe return: "There is still war there." As Wednesday approaches, Durban's migrant communities are waiting to see whether the South Africa migrant September 30 deadline passes quietly, or whether it writes, as Shinga promised, "another history."

For readers following South Africa, see GenZNewZ's earlier reporting on the KwaMakhutha house party shooting. On the broader human-rights beat, the UN's warning on Yemen and Gaza's stalled ceasefire offer further context on civilians caught in state crackdowns.