South Africa violence underlines migrant tensions

 

Attacks on foreigners are growing as they are blamed for crime and taking jobs.

After his wife called to warn that people were storming his church in Pretoria, Prophet Samson Sangojinmi rushed back to find an angry mob blocking the entrance.

As he approached the crowd, one man swung a machete towards the Nigerian pastor’s head, slashing his wrist as Mr Sangojinmi blocked the blow.

“They came here because they know it’s a Nigerian church,” says Mr Sangojinmi, who moved to South Africa in 2005. Now he says he is waiting for a sign from God to decide whether to stay or take his congregation elsewhere.

The image of the shocked pastor standing in his bloodstained white robe became a symbol of a surge in violence directed at foreigners in Pretoria, South Africa’s capital, and Johannesburg that has underscored tensions over immigration, poverty and the poor delivery of basic services in Africa’s most industrialised nation.

The attacks have raised fears in African diaspora communities, strained relations between South Africa and Nigeria, Africa’s largest economies, and tarnished the former’s reputation on the continent. Days after Mr Sangojinmi was assaulted, protesters attacked the office of MTN, South African mobile phone giant, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

For years after apartheid, South Africa, led by the African National Congress, was seen as a haven for people fleeing autocratic regimes in the region and a land of opportunity for those in poorer countries in search of jobs.

But as the economy has stagnated and frustrations over rampant joblessness and widespread poverty have risen, attacks on African migrants have increased. In 2015 the government deployed the army to quell xenophobic violence that forced thousands of people to flee their homes. In 2008 more than 60 people, mostly foreigners, died in such attacks.

Analysts say that while much of the violence has been opportunistic, some South Africans increasingly blame foreigners for crime and for taking job opportunities.

“If you look at a society that has large inequality, the main trigger [for violence] is contested access to social services and service delivery,” says Popo Mfubu, a lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s refugee rights unit. The outbreaks of violence do not take pace in wealthy suburbs, he adds.

South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world, with official unemployment topping 26 per cent, a figure far higher in black townships. Those areas suffer severe housing shortages and many people still live without regular access to water and electricity.

The government has condemned the violence, but its hesitancy to address the xenophobia and its root causes head on has aggravated the situation, Mr Mfubu and others say. President Jacob Zuma, for example, said last month that South Africans were not xenophobic, and suggested citizens’ frustrations were understandable. “The numbers of foreigners in South Africa are far more than the numbers that Europe is fighting about,” he said.

A 2011 census said there were 2.1m foreigners living in South Africa, many from countries that supported the ANC in its fight against apartheid.

The day Mr Zuma spoke a group called Mamelodi Concerned Residents held an anti-immigration march in Pretoria. Police arrested more than 130 people leading up to and during the march because of looting and violence.

Makgoka Lekganyane, a spokesman for the group, defends the demonstration by saying some foreigners are a negative influence, selling drugs to young South Africans and taking jobs and business opportunities. “You have people coming illegally into South Africa. They come, they [open] spazas [shops] in townships and destroy the local spazas. We never got the chance to grow.”

He says the government should be held accountable for the social problems his group marched against, but it is not wrong to point out illegal activities he alleges other African nationals are participating in. Local media reports say a new political party, South Africa First, has been formed with the aim of expelling foreigners.

Isaac, a Nigerian immigrant who hid with his family as a mob forced its way into his housing complex, says he understands why South Africans are frustrated by inequality but it is unfair to blame foreigners who work hard.

“If drugs and prostitution were to disappear, people would still complain foreigners are taking away their opportunities,” says Isaac, who leads a small church. “Legal or illegal, as long as you’re a black foreigner, there’s a problem. I want to get out.”