With her baby strapped to her back and carrying little more than the clothes she was wearing, Glenda Banda crossed back into Zambia amid growing anti-migrant sentiment in South Africa.
South Africa has been her home for a decade. It was where she found work, raised her family and hoped to build a better future. She told DW that within days, everything she had worked for was gone.
“I came with only the clothes on my body. I had no clothes to change into,” Banda said, adding that the local mayor had sent young men to her home to ask the landlord to evict her and her family.
“The landlord was forced to put all our belongings outside and lock the house,” Banda told DW. “We had to flee and leave everything behind.”
Banda is among more than 100 Zambians who returned to their homeland after anti-migrant protests — some of which turned violent — called for migrants to be sent back.
Everything they built was left behind
Bernadette Mwelwa tells a similar story. After living in South Africa for more than 20 years, she returned to Zambia having lost not only her livelihood but also the life she had built there.
“Even if you were a refugee or an asylum seeker, as long as you were a foreigner they didn’t want us there,” she said.
“I can’t go back to South Africa because I lost a lot of things. The mayor took the keys to my salon,” Mwelwa told DW. “I left my husband, who is Congolese, to look after our supermarket, but it was looted and everything is gone.”
South Africa sees nationwide protests over migrants
Nigeria, Mozambique and Ghana have all raised concerns about attacks on their citizens living in South Africa.
Nigeria on Sunday denounced the deaths of two of its citizens in South Africa, warning that foreign nationals are being “unduly targeted” amid the anti-migrant protests. South Africa’s main police watchdog said it had opened an investigation, Reuters reported.
Mozambique’s government said five of its citizens were killed “as a direct consequence of the xenophobic attacks” that flared after a march against undocumented migrants in the South African town of Mossel Bay at the end of May.
Governments step in
South African police said only two Mozambicans died after being assaulted following the march, and would not say if there was a link with anti-migrant sentiment, according to the news agency Associated Press.
Ghana said last week one of its citizens was fatally wounded in a shooting during the anti-migrant demonstrations. South Africa said his killing was not related to the protests and accused Ghana of spreading misinformation.
While many migrants remain in South Africa, thousands have left after weeks of anti-migrant sentiment, threats and, in some cases, physical violence.
Several African governments — including Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique — have organized voluntary repatriation flights and buses for their citizens.
Why tensions keep rising
South Africa has experienced recurring outbreaks of anti-foreigner violence since 2008. They have often coincided with periods of high unemployment, poverty and frustration over public services, with foreign nationals frequently accused of taking jobs or contributing to crime.
Researchers, however, say migrants are frequently blamed for broader economic and governance challenges.
“The most important thing for the Zambians is to stay safe and come back home. Home is home,” Zambia’s Vice President Mutale Nalumango told journalists in Lusaka, adding that authorities would assess individual cases before determining what assistance could be provided.
Xenophobia in South Africa: Who’s really paying the price?
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa rejected suggestions that South Africans are inherently xenophobic, saying migration presents complex challenges that require political solutions.
“South Africans are not xenophobic. South Africans are Africans, and they want to live with other Africans peacefully,” Ramaphosa said in a recent national address. “Our people are calling on us as leaders to resolve the many challenges that are brought to bear by migration.”
Calls to prevent more violence
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says protecting migrants and preventing further violence remains an urgent priority.
“We are deeply worried about the situation, and we are fully committed to supporting the government,” Yitna Getachew, the IOM’s Chief of Mission for South Africa, said at a symposium on migration and social cohesion at Wits University in Johannesburg at the end of last month.
“And the United Nations, we see this in two ways. One is the immediate danger that is lurking, the escalation of tensions. We believe that needs to be addressed immediately. We are calling for de-escalation of tensions; we are calling for calm.”
Returning home may bring physical safety, but not necessarily emotional recovery, says Lisa Thompson-Smeddle, a psychologist based in the South African town of Stellenbosch.
“Returning home after experiencing xenophobic violence does not automatically bring healing, safety or health,” she told DW, noting that many survivors continue to struggle with grief, anxiety and trauma after losing homes, livelihoods and communities.
Rebuilding their lives in Zambia
Anti-foreigner sentiment is often driven by wider governance and economic problems, including unemployment, inequality and poor service delivery, rather than migration itself a senior migration researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand’s (Wits) African Centre for Migration and Society in Johannesburg
In a recent paper, Landau says that governments should strengthen social cohesion and improve governance instead of blaming migrants for broader socioeconomic challenges.
However, for Banda and Mwelwa those policy debates feel distant.
They have found safety back in Zambia. But the process of rebuilding their lives, restoring their livelihoods and recovering from the emotional scars of displacement is only just beginning.
