L'Afrique du Sud annonce avoir renvoyé 2.745 étrangers en une semaine
South Africa repatriated 2,745 foreigners in the week following President Cyril Ramaphosa's promise to toughen the fight against illegal immigration, the country's interior minister announced Sunday.
The country has been gripped by xenophobic protests for several months. Recent looting of businesses and attacks targeting foreigners have prompted citizens of Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique to accept voluntary repatriation organized by their governments.
"We can announce the number of 2,745 repatriations carried out during this period since the president's intervention," Interior Minister Leon Schreiber told the press, adding that the figures could "change."
On June 7, Mr. Ramaphosa said he recognized concerns about illegal immigration, but warned that the authorities would not tolerate anyone taking the law into their own hands.
The government clarified that most of those repatriated were in the country illegally. They include Malawian nationals, some 7,000 of whom are sheltering in a vacant lot in the eastern port city of Durban, according to the newly established inter-ministerial committee on migration.
These nationals began to be evacuated in eight buses chartered by the Malawian government on Sunday, with South Africa providing ten additional vehicles, the committee said.
Among those boarding the first buses, some carried babies on their backs and small bags. "I'm relieved that we're finally leaving. It's better than living here in fear," explained Fortunate Chilenje, from Blantyre, the economic capital of Malawi.
This 25-year-old woman had been living in South Africa for three years, she told AFP, adding that the threats to leave had followed her into the camp, one of the largest to have sprung up since the start of the unrest.
- "Resigned" -
The government assured on Sunday that it had no intention of establishing refugee camps, even temporarily.
Hassan Hasha, 27, says he is still in debt from his trip to South Africa, where he only stayed for a few weeks before xenophobic sentiment exploded, but assured: "I resigned myself to returning home."
South Africa is one of the richest economies on the continent and has long attracted migrant workers from across the continent, both legally and illegally.
But with an unemployment rate above 30%, the country is experiencing recurring outbreaks of xenophobic violence, including new episodes in recent weeks.
Crowds of South Africans armed with sticks, whips and shields marched in parts of the country, ordering foreigners without residency permits to leave before June 30.
Tensions escalated after the deaths of two Mozambicans during a march on May 29 against undocumented migrants in the city of Mossel Bay, in the Western Cape province. Mozambican authorities, however, report a death toll of five.
More than three million foreigners live in South Africa, representing 5.1% of the population, according to the national statistics agency.
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