South African authorities have deployed police units to towns and cities across the country before planned demonstrations against undocumented foreign nationals.
Security personnel were seen patrolling the central business district in Johannesburg, where many shopkeepers decided not to open on Tuesday.
Trucks and other assets from the South African National Defence Force were also present, according to local media reports.
Protests Organized by Vigilante Groups
The protests have been organized by anti-migration vigilante groups, including March and March, which set an unofficial June 30 deadline for undocumented foreigners to leave the country.
Organizers insist they are focused on undocumented migrants and will demonstrate peacefully. However, foreigners with documentation have also complained of targeted harassment.
"We are not calling for violence … No one will be killed on 30 June and no looting will take place in our name," said Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, the leader of March and March.
The police deployment is seen as an attempt to prevent mass-scale looting and mob violence, similar to the 2008 anti-migrant riots that left 62 people dead.
In July 2021, more than 350 people were killed in the country’s deadliest unrest since the end of apartheid.
For weeks this May and June, men carrying sticks and chanting "abahambe" (an isiZulu and isiXhosa word meaning "they must leave") have been seen going from shop to shop, interrogating and in some cases beating up migrants across Johannesburg and Durban.
So far, five Mozambican nationals have been killed, according to a statement from South Africa’s north-eastern neighbor.
Foreign-born migrants make up an estimated 4% of South Africa’s 62 million people, despite claims that they number as many as 15-20 million.
Many migrants work in the informal sector, as economic strain in neighboring countries has caused thousands to seek work in one of Africa’s largest economies.
Crime statistics show that only a small fraction of crimes are committed by foreigners, undermining a popular narrative by protest organizers.
But in a country with one of the world’s highest unemployment rates and where wealth is concentrated in the hands of the white minority, African migrants are sometimes treated as a scapegoat.
Authorities have been accused of responding meekly as the violence has gone largely unchecked.
"There is no place for racism, sexism, tribalism, xenophobia, Afrophobia or any other form of intolerance," President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a recent forum with traditional monarchs.
Several governments, including Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda, have repatriated hundreds of their citizens before the deadline, with some still stranded in South Africa.
On social media, footage has emerged of dozens of Malawians camped in the cold outside their consulate in Johannesburg, waiting for processing and transport out of the country before the expiration of the deadline.
