Zimbabwean Migrants Camp at Cape Town Consulate as South Africa Enforces June 30 Self-Deportation Deadline

Zimbabwean migrants camped outside their country's consulate in Cape Town on June 24. Activists have set a June 30 deadline for undocumented migrants to leave South Africa. The protests were organized by the group March and March.

Its leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma stated at a May news conference that South Africa will be great again. Recent demonstrations by the group have sparked violent and deadly attacks against foreigners. South African police plan a 600 million rand deployment, equal to about 36.5 million dollars, to maintain order on June 30.

March and March pledged to protest peacefully that day. Esther Ofosu and Shalom, Ghanaian hairdressers who worked in a salon south of Johannesburg, faced the deadline after moving to Carletonville near Johannesburg at the end of last year. Esther Ofosu boarded a repatriation flight to Accra on May 27 with about 300 other Ghanaians.

She later found work as a nurse at a small maternity home near Accra, though her pay is much less than what she earned in South Africa. Shalom requested only her first name be used because she lacks long-term legal status. She stated she lacks sufficient savings to purchase a plane ticket home and said she knows this country is not for her.

Ghana announced in early May a plan to repatriate any of its 25,000 citizens in South Africa who felt endangered or unwelcome. Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe began evacuating hundreds of their citizens after that announcement. Free government repatriation flights for Ghanaians ended after the first flight.

Operation Dudula, a violent vigilante group, has physically blocked migrants from entering health facilities and schools. More than 40 percent of South Africans say they do not welcome any migrants living in the country. A World Bank study from 2018 found every migrant worker in South Africa creates about two jobs for South Africans.