“… Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two
commandments.” (Matthew 22:39-40)
For many weeks now, the media has been awash with campaigns against illegal and legal
immigrants in South Africa to return to their countries. Foreign nationals are accused of
competing for limited resources for South Africans, leading to poverty and unemployment
of South Africans because the foreigners are “taking their jobs”, overpopulation because
there is no control on the influx of migrants and poor service delivery. Afrophobia was
well pronounced in the campaign as African immigrants were accused of crimes and drug
dealings. The attacks were in the form of harassments, beatings, displacements, killings,
lootings, and destruction of foreign-owned shops and homes. A deadline for concluding
the March and March Campaign was set for June 30, 2026. The situation saw many
Africans desperate to leave South Africa for their safety. Some have been in the country
for many years as legal migrants, asylum seekers or illegal immigrants. Some of them
had regarded South Africa as their new home. All the hopes were crumbled, and they are
returning home to their country of origin. Some are returning empty-handed because
whatever they had invested in was destroyed, some are coming with wounds that need
to be bandaged, some are bringing children who were forcefully dropped from school,
and some went to South Africa as couples, but they are returning as individuals.
Read more below…
