Have South Africans always been hostile to migrants? Historians map a chequered history

Anti-immigrant violence began to sweep across South Africa once again in March 2026.

Over the following months an estimated 56,000 Malawians and 115,000 Zimbabweans were forced to flee their homes.

At least 11 foreign nationals were killed.

It took the country’s President Cyril Ramaphosa some months to condemn the violence .

The anti-migrant mass protests have been led by groups including March and March and Operation Dudula .

The anti-immigrant groups blamed undocumented African migrants for crime, unemployment and inadequate public services, and set “deadlines” for them to leave the country.

The slogan abahambe (“they must leave” in isiZulu) was repeated during burglaries and sexual assaults .

In response, governments in Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi paid for tens of thousands of their citizens to return home, and asked the International Criminal Court to intervene .

The South African government under an African National Congress led coalition deported 19,000 migrants in just a few months.

It also effectively condoned the violence, publicly shaking hands with protest leaders .

Commentators such as Nesrine Malik and William Shoki have framed the violence as supplanting the post-1994 “rainbow nation” consensus.

This was a phrase coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to invoke a sense of unity in South Africa’s diverse population after nearly five decades under the segregationist policies of apartheid.

For his part, Ramaphosa has insisted that “quite a bit of the violence” was “being propelled from outside South Africa”.

He did not provide evidence.