Since nationwide protests erupted on June 30, every Thursday has seen anti-immigrant demonstrations across South Africa. Vigilante groups—"Operation Dudula” and the newer “March and March,” founded by Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma—had set June 30 as a “departure deadline” for undocumented foreigners, casting the campaign as a demand for border control and rule of law. In practice, the line between legal and illegal has not held: self-appointed patrols have moved from the streets to door-to-door “inspections” of homes and shops, hunting for migrants and handing some to the police. Immigrant-run “spaza shops”—the small community groceries that are a mainstay of township life—have been looted and burned. Tens of thousands have fled; by AFP’s estimate as many as 150,000 foreign nationals have left in recent weeks, and several African governments have begun evacuating their citizens. On June 30 alone, some 120 marches were held and more than 900 people were arrested.
The engine is economic collapse, not foreigners. South Africa’s official unemployment rate hit 32.7% in the first quarter of 2026; for those aged 15 to 24, it is 60.9%. Undocumented foreigners are estimated at 2 to 5 million and legal immigrants at about 3.1 million, in a nation of some 63 million—far too few to explain a jobs catastrophe. As real incomes fall and power and water services fail, the fury has been aimed at the migr next door.