South Africa: Driven home by anti-migrant protests
Two women tell DW how anti-migrant protests upended their lives in South Africa, forcing them to return to Zambia and rebuild from scratch. With her
Two women tell DW how anti-migrant protests upended their lives in South Africa, forcing them to return to Zambia and rebuild from scratch. With her baby strapped to her back and carrying little more than the clothes she was wearing, Glenda Banda crossed back into Zambia amid growing anti-migrant sentiment in South Africa. South Africa has been her home for a decade. It was where she found work, raised her family and hoped to build a better future. She told DW that within days, everything she had worked for was gone. "I came with only the clothes on my body. I had no clothes to change into," Banda said, adding that the local mayor had sent young men to her home to ask the landlord to evict her and her family. "The landlord was forced to put all our belongings outside and lock the house," Banda told DW. "We had to flee and leave everything behind." Banda is among more than 100 Zambians who returned to their homeland after anti-migrant protests — some of which turned violent — called for migrants to be sent back. Everything they built was left behind Bernadette Mwelwa tells a similar story. After living in South Africa for more than 20 years, she returned to Zambia having lost not only her livelihood but also the life she had built there. "Even if you were a refugee or an asylum seeker, as long as you were a foreigner they didn't want us there," she said. "I can't go back to South Africa because I lost a lot of things.
The mayor took the keys to my salon," Mwelwa told DW. "I left my husband, who is Congolese, to look after our supermarket, but it was looted and everything is gone." South Africa sees nationwide protests over migrants To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Nigeria, Mozambique and Ghana have all raised concerns about attacks on their citizens living in South Africa. Nigeria on Sunday denounced the deaths of two of its citizens in South Africa, warning that foreign nationals are being "unduly targeted" amid the anti-migrant protests. South Africa's main police watchdog said it had opened an investigation, Reuters reported. Mozambique's government said five of its citizens were killed "as a direct consequence of the xenophobic attacks" that flared after a march against undocumented migrants in the South African town of Mossel Bay at the end of May. Governments step in South African police said only two Mozambicans died after being assaulted following the march, and would not say if there was a link with anti-migrant sentiment, according to the news agency Associated Press. Ghana said last week one of its citizens was fatally wounded in a shooting during the anti-migrant demonstrations. South Africa said his killing was not related to the protests and accused Ghana of spreading misinformation. While many migrants remain in South Africa, thousands have left after weeks of anti-migrant sentiment, threats and, in some cases, physical violence. Several African governments — including Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique — have organized voluntary repatriation flights and buses for their citizens.
The BriefWire