JOHANNESBURG — South Africa has deported or repatriated more than 53,000 African immigrants in the space of a month in a crackdown by authorities that has coincided with a series of sometimes violent protests against illegal migration.
More than 80% of the immigrants sent home were from Malawi, South African Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said Sunday. Officials did not give a breakdown of how many were deported and how many took up offers of voluntary repatriation.
Several African countries have provided planes and buses to bring their citizens home during a surge in anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa in recent months that has sparked some attacks against foreigners and left parts of the country on edge.
Police said they have arrested 350 people in connection with public violence, intimidation and unauthorized immigration checks — a trend where groups of South African civilians attempt to force migrants to show documents to prove they are in the country legally.
The deaths of at least three migrants — two from Mozambique and one from Malawi — are being investigated by South African police. Nigeria has said two of its citizens were killed in anti-immigrant protests in South Africa, though South African authorities have denied their deaths were linked to the protests.
Immigrants from Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique made up the majority of the migrants deported or repatriated, but they also included citizens of Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya, South African officials said.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced new plans last month to strengthen border security and enforce immigration laws in Africa’s most developed economy, and acknowledged rising tensions over the issue. That came in response to growing protests by anti-migrant groups claiming, without evidence, that immigrants were contributing to South Africa’s high unemployment rate and problems with crime.
Ramaphosa warned South Africans against taking the law into their own hands following reports of some vigilante attacks against migrants.
The anti-migrant groups held their latest major protest on June 30, which they said was the deadline for undocumented immigrants in South Africa to leave. The government rejected the deadline.
But it still prompted thousands of Malawians to gather at a temporary immigration site in the eastern city of Durban seeking repatriation. South African officials said some were repatriated voluntarily, but many were officially deported for being in the country without documents.
More than 20,000 migrants were also deported or repatriated from a temporary immigration center set up in the northern border town of Musina, officials said.
South Africa has long attracted migrants from other African nations because of its relative wealth — a source of sporadic tensions. In 2008, more than 60 people were killed in violence involving attacks against foreigners. There have been other outbursts of violence against immigrants.
Sabina Tadera of the Southern Africa Network for Immigrants and Refugees, which advocates for immigrants’ rights, said some Malawians who gathered at temporary camps recently looking to return home were in South Africa legally but feared attacks.
“There is a misconception that all people on the move are undocumented,” she told The Associated Press.
The crackdown has also caused diplomatic tensions with some of the migrants’ home countries, which have criticized South Africa for what they call a climate of xenophobia.
“For migrants, South Africa is seen to offer economic opportunities that do not exist in their country of origin,” said Laura Freeman, an independent human rights and migration consultant. “However, waves of xenophobic violence … including this one, shift that dynamic, with South Africa increasingly being seen as unfriendly.”
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