Anti-migrant marches erupt across South Africa as Operation Dudula deadline expires

Summary

Anti-migrant marches organised by Operation Dudula and allied groups erupted across all nine South African provinces on June 30 as the ultimatum deadline, set in late May for undocumented foreigners to leave the country, expired at midnight. The Johannesburg march ran from Bayers Naude Square into Hillbrow; the main Durban march stretched from King Dinuzulu Park to South Beach police station. More than 25,000 foreign nationals had already been bussed out of South Africa before the deadline, many from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, and Nigeria. Three people, including a Malawian national and two Mozambicans, were killed in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape in the days before the deadline. President Ramaphosa urged calm while the government deployed a R600 million police and military operation to prevent the marches from turning violent. Since March 1, authorities recorded at least 103 cases of anti-immigrant violence and 195 arrests. By early morning, no major incidents had been confirmed in the protests themselves.

Why it matters

The June 30 mobilisation is the largest nationally coordinated anti-migrant action since South Africa's 2008 pogroms and 2021 unrest, drawing explicit parallel to events that killed 350 people. Whether the security cordon holds through the day determines whether the government can claim to have contained a domestic political crisis that has already inflicted serious damage on South Africa's AU chair credibility and its relationships with ECOWAS member states.