Society News

South Africa's June 30 'deadline' for migrants: shops shut, buses idle, people taken to police

Anti-immigrant marches took place across South Africa on Tuesday, June 30, the date anti-migration groups had set as an unofficial deadline for undocumented foreigners to leave the country. Tanzania's The Citizen, carrying Reuters, reported that workers stayed home, shops were shut and buses sat idle across South Africa, and published a photo of foreign nationals sleeping outside a Home Affairs office in Durban.

South African site Pdby said March and March, led by Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, had demanded its conditions be met by June 30. Thousands marched in Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg; many small shops closed and public transport was limited. Police largely kept the peace, but in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, alleged undocumented immigrants were taken away in police vans, and a Zimbabwean man who was in the country legally was “arrested” by protesters.

“We don't care, he is Tsonga.” — protesters to a woman in Germiston whose South African father was taken to a police van, via Pdby

Pdby noted that President Cyril Ramaphosa had warned on June 7 against blaming immigrants for the country's problems and urged citizens not to take the law into their own hands.

How each outlet framed it

• The Citizen (Reuters) — a country brought to a standstill and fears of what comes next.
• Pdby — neighbourhood scenes of shop closures and people seized by protesters.
• Africanews — followed up as the campaign continued into July.

What happened next: on July 9, Africanews reported, citing AP and Reuters, that protesters in Alexandra went door to door handing people to police, that March and March planned marches every Thursday, and that thousands of people from Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique had fled in recent weeks.