JOHANNESBURG – President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned that security forces will use the full force of the law against anyone attempting to destabilise South Africa during planned anti-immigrant marches next week.

The president’s stern message comes as citizen-led groups have declared 30 June a deadline for undocumented foreigners to leave the country, with nationwide marches planned to protest against illegal immigration.

“We will not tolerate any attempts to destabilise the country by anyone, whether marching or otherwise,” Ramaphosa told the upper house of parliament on Thursday. “Our security forces are ready and those who transgress the measures that we are putting in place will definitely meet the might of the law.”

The ultimatum has raised fears of renewed xenophobic violence, which has claimed lives in previous incidents. Police have announced heightened security measures across the country for 30 June, whilst government officials have intensified efforts to maintain calm, including consultations with the influential Zulu Royal House.

At least three people have died in weeks of sometimes violent xenophobic unrest, according to official sources. Mozambican authorities, however, put the death toll amongst their nationals at five.

The anti-migrant campaign has already triggered voluntary repatriations of thousands of foreigners from Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique and Nigeria. Makeshift camps have sprung up in Durban and Johannesburg as thousands await transport home, prompting aid groups to warn of a deepening humanitarian crisis.

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“We are taking measures to ensure that the 30th becomes a normal day where people will be able to work, to go about their business,” the president said.

South Africa, amongst Africa’s largest and most industrialised economies, has long attracted job seekers from across the continent despite its own unemployment rate of around 32%. Competition for scarce work has fuelled resentment, with some South Africans blaming migrants for poverty and crime.

Whilst Ramaphosa and major labour unions maintain that migrants are being scapegoated for the country’s problems, some politicians have seized on the issue ahead of local elections later this year.

Previous outbreaks of violence targeting undocumented foreign nationals have proved deadly. In 2008, 62 people were killed in riots, whilst violence in 2019 saw armed mobs attack foreign-owned businesses around Johannesburg, leaving at least 12 people dead, 10 of them South African citizens.

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