Mandela’s dream of African unification wanes as South Africa turns its back on immigrants

When apartheid ended, Munera Mokgoko was only three years old. Nelson Mandela’s concept of social equality and Pan-African unity generated the wave of hope that accompanied Black independence thirty years ago, a wave that she can hardly even begin to recall, much less comprehend.

The thirty-three-year-old stated, “South Africa doesn’t have any ubuntu,” a Zulu word for humanity, in the run-up to an election in which the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has promised to crack down on unauthorized migrants from anywhere on the continent.

“It’s like we don’t know how to welcome people.”

Since the end of white minority rule, Mokgoko’s husband, a Tanzanian, is one of many African migrants who have come to this country and encountered the more stern side of the “Rainbow Nation,” a term coined by Nelson Mandela and others in the 1990s to characterize South Africa’s ambitions to be a model of intercultural peace.

Immigration-related discontent among the populace has gained significant traction ahead of the May 29 election. This is the first national election in which the majority of South Africans, whose median age is around 28, have no recollection of the country’s decades-long apartheid, the struggle for independence, or the ascent to power of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1994.

In order to get to Johannesburg, the “City of Gold,” hundreds of hopefuls, including Mokgoko’s 34-year-old spouse Idi Rajebo, have boarded dilapidated minibuses, trudged through dense bush, and bought off border guards. These hopefuls are leaving rural poverty in much poorer countries like Tanzania and Malawi.

In a deserted apartment building that was being “hijacked” by crooks, he and several other people were forced to live in cramped conditions with overflowing toilets and drug users leaning over stairwells.

“It wasn’t nice,” remarked Rajebo’s 39-year-old Tanzanian acquaintance who oversaw the ground floor kitchen.

“We all had the same idea: make some money and get out.”

Many were not given the opportunity. The Usindiso apartment building caught fire nine months ago, killing 77 people—mostly migrants—and leaving hundreds homeless.

Before and after the Usindiso catastrophe, many of the survivors’ accounts have not been fully assembled by any news organization until Reuters.

About fifty people were interviewed for this piece, including 19 migrant victims, government representatives, and attorneys for survivors in a public investigation into the fire’s causes. Hundreds of pages of documents were also provided as evidence for the investigation, the most of which were not made public.

The stories throw a rare light on the harsh circumstances faced by many Africans who come to live in the most developed country on the continent in hopes of bettering their lot in life. They also describe the hostility they have faced from South African authorities and vigilante groups who accuse foreigners of stealing jobs and services from locals.

This month, the public investigation came to the conclusion that the fire was started by a South African guy who had been high on crystal meth when he killed another local by strangulation and then lit the body on fire with gasoline to hide the evidence of the crime.

The investigation also found that local authorities’ negligence had allowed the building to turn into a dangerous place full with weapons, drug use, murder, and flammable waste. As a result, the premier of the province promised to act quickly to put the report’s recommendations into action.

“We battled to liberate Africa.”

The struggle goes on for those who made it out of the fire. Out of the 19 migrants who were interviewed, seven are sleeping in homemade tents or on the pavements.

Four of the remaining people were deported for not having proper immigration documents, and the majority claimed they were living in even more filthy and cramped quarters than the destroyed block from which they had fled. According to attorneys who represented the fire survivors during the public investigation and served as their legal advice when they were detained, a total of 25 survivors have been deported.

With voters furious over a long list of issues facing the country—such as a lack of adequate housing, frequent power outages, water shortages, inadequate schools, high rates of unemployment, and high crime—the long-dominant African National Party (ANC) is predicted to lose its parliamentary majority for the first time in this month’s election, which could spell the end of an era for South Africa after independence.

In a close contest for votes, the major parties have all announced pledges to take stronger enforcement measures against illegal immigrants.

In an effort to “deter economic migrants who come to South Africa disguising as asylum seekers,” the government proposed last month in its official gazette to withdraw from or scale back its commitments to the United Nations Refugees Convention and related treaties. By doing this, it claimed it would have more freedom to deny asylum claims it deemed to be false.

Local human rights organizations expressed outrage over the white paper, and three UN agencies—the UNHCR refugee body, the IOM migration organization, and Unicef Children’s Fund—said the withdrawal would establish a bad precedent and would result in statelessness for South African-born children.

The plans also offer a startling contrast to the rhetoric of former African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela, who, upon becoming the nation’s first democratically elected president, stated that Africans were “one people with a common destiny.”

In June 1994, Mandela reminded fellow leaders, “When the history of our struggle is written, it will tell a glorious tale of African solidarity.” “Africa shed her blood … so that all her children could be free. She gave of her limited wealth and resources so that all of Africa should be liberated.”

In 1995 and 1996, the ANC acquiesced to the refugee treaties without conditions.

Not one of the numerous signatories was able to obtain opt-outs from criteria like providing refugees with the same welfare benefits as Americans.

During an Africa Refugee Day lecture in 1997, Nelson Mandela emphasised the need for “all of us on the African continent to unite” in order to manage the large-scale refugee flows, which are frequently caused by war.

In an interview with Reuters, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi—who introduced the white paper—said that migrants in general were placing a significant strain on South Africa’s resources. He mentioned a hospital in the northeastern town of Musina, where he claimed that 70 percent of the patients in the maternity ward were Zimbabweans.

Reuters was unable to confirm such maternity ward numbers on its own. The hospital in Musina did not return calls.

In addition, Motsoaledi denied any implication of xenophobia and claimed that firms were able to undercut the minimum wage because of unauthorized migrants.

“Every country has got the right to safeguard its interests,” he stated. “Pan-Africanism does not mean entering each other’s country illegally.”

Human rights activist Andy Chinnah, who has spent the last nine months feeding the fire victims and assisting with arranging their legal representation for the public inquiry that looked into what caused the fire and who should be held accountable for the tragedy, rejects the government’s position.

Chinnah claimed that political actions to restrict migrant rights amount to a betrayal of Mandela’s legacy and that the treatment of African migrants reminded him of the apartheid system, except that now it was Black people from other countries who were the “outsiders.”

“He wanted one Africa. All the other presidents from the other African countries supported him and the liberation movement to get the freedom that we enjoy today,” said Chinnah.

“We didn’t fight for just the freedom of us in South Africa. We fought for a free Africa. We fought against colonialism.”

Enter the “Force out” operation.

The national statistics office reports that from 835,000 in 1996 to 2.4 million in 2022—with over 80% of them coming from Sub-Saharan Africa—the number of legal immigrants living in South Africa has nearly tripled. According to the report, the top five countries of origin for migrants are Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, and Malawi, accounting for around 4% of the population.

According to census data, about 14% of the population in the United States, another nation where immigration is a major topic in election year, is foreign-born.

Undocumented migrants are not included in the official South African statistics; according to the government white paper, there are no trustworthy statistics on this population. It claims that between 15,000 and 20,000 undocumented migrants are deported by immigration authorities annually, and that figure is on the rise.

In order to reach South Africa’s more developed economy, migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa—where a large portion of the populace struggles to make ends meet through farming—are frequently prepared to incur significant risks.

They pursue careers as shopkeepers, waiters, security guards, artisanal miners, and child caregivers, to mention a few.

Nine of the 19 immigrant survivors that Reuters spoke with, including Rajebo, claimed that although they had legal visas, they had lost the paperwork in the fire along with the majority of their possessions. Ten more claimed they lacked legitimate immigration documents. Their accounts could not be independently verified by Reuters.

An Ichikowitz Family Foundation study of 1,000 18–24-year-olds, released this month, found that the public, especially the youth, is very frustrated with undocumented migrants in South Africa. The Ichikowitz Family Foundation is an advocacy group for rights and conservation based in Johannesburg.

Roughly 88% of respondents said they thought illegal immigrants were stealing resources and employment from South Africans, 86% said they were increasing crime, and 85% said they ought to be expelled by force.

Few movements are better at channeling this simmering rage than Operation Dudula, which translates to “force out” in Zulu. This group was established in 2021 with the explicit goal of driving away illegal immigrants from South Africa, whom they hold responsible for a plethora of social and economic problems.

There are hundreds of people nationwide that are part in this loosely organized street movement. It has gained notoriety for organizing protests against undocumented migrant laborers, issuing threats against them, and occasionally launching assaults on companies owned by foreigners.

Operation Dudula filed to become a political party before the end of the previous year, but the electoral commission disqualified it from running in the election last month because it failed to submit its list of candidates by the deadline.

When Reuters questioned the migrant survivors of the Aug. 31 fire in Johannesburg, about half of them claimed that Operation Dudula members had harassed and intimidated them both before and after the incident.

According to four witnesses questioned, two months before to the fire, Dudula members stormed through the building wearing their distinctive white T-shirts and combat pants, demanding to see identification from foreign nationals, searching rooms for narcotics, and beating several residents with whips.

Five distinct affidavits, which were seen by Reuters and filed to the public investigation, support their accounts.

Five witnesses and five testimonies state that on the day following the fire, when dozens of shell-shocked and destitute survivors sat outside the building, roughly thirty members of Dudula arrived armed with whips, marched up, and started tormenting them.

There was a group of people who were shouting, singing, and laughing joyfully, according to Omari Hanya, 44, a survivor from Tanzania.

“‘These foreigners must go back home or die’, they were saying in Zulu.”
Isaac Lesole, the deputy secretary general of Dudula, denied the claims made by the group that they mistreated or harassed the migrants in the neighborhood.

He claimed that members are only permitted to inquire as to whether someone has valid visa documents—not to insist on seeing them—according to the group’s code of conduct, which Reuters has seen. He denied the accusation of vigilantism, arguing that their duty was to notify law enforcement whenever necessary.

“Yes, in the past, we’ve been in trouble for acting on our own,” Lesole replied. Although he admitted that in the past Dudula members had attacked and threatened migrant workers and their businesses, he asserted that the group currently functions within the law as whistleblowers.

“Yes, there were members of Operation Dudula outside the Usindiso building following the fire, but it was not celebratory,” he stated. The purpose of the march, according to him, was to draw attention to the issue of unauthorized immigration and demonstrate that Dudula was correct to believe that too many buildings in the town center were now owned by foreigners.

When asked how the government saw Dudula, Home Affairs Minister Motsoaledi responded that the group’s anti-immigrant actions were not supported in South Africa.

“You don’t take the law into your own hands,” he stated. “You don’t follow vigilantism because the country will go into chaos.”

A plea has not yet been entered by the detained suspect in the deadly fire, who is accused with 76 counts of murder and 86 counts of attempted murder.

The suspect’s lawyer made it known in public in March that he planned to enter a not guilty plea. Since then, an official close to the case who asked to remain anonymous to discuss it claims that the suspect fired his counsel for not showing up for a court appearance on behalf of the suspect, and no new attorney has been named.

Despite being $11 short, I lost.

Rajebo was operating a grocery store in Randfontein, a gold mining town west of Johannesburg, when Mokgoko, a South African from Northwest Province, first met him in 2007. A year prior, Rajebo had traveled by bus from Tanga, the port city in Tanzania.

They moved into the fourth floor of the doomed block in 2019 with their three kids.

Outside the tin house where she currently lives, Mokgoko told Reuters, “We had financial problems; it was cheap.” Mymuna, her one-year-old daughter, giggled as she smeared dirt on her pink booties.

Due to a shortage of funds, the Usindiso building—which had served as a shelter for women victims of domestic abuse—closed in 2017. It was being taken over by criminal gangs who were demanding “rent” from residents and newcomers when Mokgoko and Rajebo arrived.

Eight fire survivors told Reuters that it quickly filled up with desperate newcomers, with residents and criminals dividing its space by building tin shacks in bathrooms and on staircases.

Approximately half of the individuals residing in the commandeered building during the fire were migrants, as stated by the legal firm Norton Rose Fulbright, who represented 340 survivors during the investigation. Official estimates do not exist.

If you didn’t pay your bills on time, the gangs could be violent, according to Rajebo’s Tanzanian friend Simon, who oversaw the ground floor kitchen.

“They came in groups of five or six, with guns, usually a revolver,” he stated. “I saw them beat someone with a bottle for being 200 rand ($11) short.”

Eight foreign residents told Reuters that the crooks openly preferred to rent to migrants because many were afraid to report the situation to the authorities because some were unauthorized and others had already been extorted by them.

Hanya was one of seven foreign fire survivors who told Reuters that individuals wearing badges and uniforms from the police frequently raided their makeshift market stalls inside and outside the building, demanding to see their immigration documents. The guys frequently sought payments of between 500 and 2,000 rand to avoid going to jail, they alleged, especially if no legitimate document was supplied or occasionally even if one was.

Four of those survivors told the story of being taken to a quiet street in a van to complete the transaction. Two claimed that until friends or family arrived with cash to free them, they had been imprisoned in police cells.

Street food vendor Kenneth Jiro, 32, from Malawi, made it through the fire but lost his 26-year-old

Manis. He remembered that every few weeks, guys dressed like police officers would raid his stall and demand between R700 and R1,000.

The Johannesburg police (JMPD) has not received any reports of such misbehavior by officers inside its ranks, according to spokesperson Xolani Fihla. However, Fihla stated that “if any evidence is brought to the JMPD then disciplinary action must be taken.”

“Return the baby.”

According to six witnesses, Rajebo was one of 32 migrant survivors who were moved by Johannesburg authorities the night following the fire to a pavilion in Hofland Park, a recreation center in a lush but dilapidated suburb just outside the city center.

The shelter was packed, according to Hanya, a Usindiso survivor who operates a stand selling smokes and candies. It had “no privacy, no door on the toilet, barely anywhere to sleep – just a few mattresses,” he stated.

He chose to spend the night on the streets shortly after arrival, saying, “People just sitting around waiting for food.”

Turns out, that was a smart move. Authorities invaded the center on November 15 and pushed the 32 international migrants into security cars. A cameraman and reporter for Reuters saw the raid.

Mokgoko recollects witnessing Rajebo being dragged outdoors in the direction of a convoy of police cars and immigration vans. “He was with the baby. They were pulling him, saying, ‘You’d better give the baby back to the mother because you’re not going with them’.”

Mokgoko received the baby from Rajebo and watched as her husband got into one of the vans.

Officials were removing the undocumented immigrants to be sent to their home countries, acting chief of home affairs for Gauteng, Albert Matsaung, told Reuters on the spot.

According to Rajebo and another jailed Tanzanian, 32-year-old Rashidi Suleiman Abdallah, the 32 migrants were transported to a police station, where they were arrested, fingerprinted, and taken to Lindela immigration prison, which is located 40 km outside of the city center.

In a final unsuccessful court challenge to prevent their deportation, their legal teams at Norton Rose Fulbright and Lawyers for Human Rights substantiated their accounts.

Except for seven who had fled during a jail break in March, they were all deported on April 10, according to Rajebo, Abdallah, and the attorneys for the 32 detainees. Of the deportees, four were from Malawi while the majority were from Tanzania.

They touched down in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. They were held until their families could pay a fine of 57,000 shillings ($22) to the Tanzanian government, which was imposed on citizens who returned home after being deported. After a week, Rajebo left when his family managed to scrape together the cash.

Requests for comments on the deportees’ return were not answered by Tanzania’s immigration agency.

Rajebo has no choice but to return if he wants to see his wife and kids again, he told Reuters over the phone on April 22. Even though he believes they would be far more welcomed in Tanzania than he was in her native country, he added that bringing them there is not feasible due to the lack of economic opportunities.

“I intend to return,” declared Rajebo. “I want a normal family. I don’t want to be separated from them.”

He continued, “Even with all the hostility I experienced in South Africa, it’s still better than the stifling poverty back home.” IMF data shows that Tanzania’s yearly economic production per person is $1,220, while South Africa’s is $5,970.

“You go there, you can make some money,” Rajebo remarked, stifling his laughter. “That’s why we keep going.”