29 June 2026
Zimbabwean women line up with their children and luggage outside the Zimbabwean Consulate in Cape Town on 28 June 2026. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks
March and March claims to be non-violent, to uphold human rights, and to be fighting only for the law to be enforced. But the movement has delivered nothing but suffering for South Africans and immigrants.
Fearing the worst, tens of thousands of immigrants in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape uprooted their lives, left their jobs, and, in some cases, their families, to be repatriated to Malawi and Mozambique – countries where they will find it harder to earn a living. They spent many nights sleeping in makeshift repatriation camps. Authorities have been left scrambling to cope.
Hundreds of Zimbabweans fled rural towns in the Western Cape and descended on the Zimbabwean Consulate in Cape Town, where they spent several nights sleeping rough. Amid a cold front on Sunday, they were moved, in the rain, to a repatriation site in Epping.
Most of those who have fled were likely renting rooms or shacks from South African landlords, who have now lost their income.
Lives have been lost. After a March and March protest in Pietermaritzburg, a Malawian man was fatally assaulted. In Mossel Bay, two men were beaten to death by an angry mob. The killers were not directly affiliated with March and March, but they were mobilised under the mabahambe (“they must go”) slogan. On the same day in the same area, another man, a South African, was killed. Police say it was not linked to the xenophobic violence, but the man’s family insists it was because he spoke Tsonga.
Immigrants who have been living in South Africa for many years, including people who are permanent residents or refugees, are experiencing new levels of harassment and discrimination.
South Africans who speak Tsonga are also being harassed.
Opportunists, from political parties to sinister nuclear lobby groups, have exploited the xenophobic sentiment stirred up by March and March for political gain.
March and March have not achieved an end to poverty, unemployment, drug trafficking, or crime. They have not fixed our immigration system or secured our borders.
They have instead inspired greater lawlessness. They have made hateful monsters out of many of us and exposed our inhumanity.
Malawian immigrants queue to be processed and repatriated on 28 June 2026. Archive photo: Ihsaan Haffajee
