Anti-immigration protesters raid homes in Johannesburg township, hand migrants to police

Anti-immigration protesters in Johannesburg’s Alexandra township went door to door on July 9, breaking down doors and pulling suspected undocumented foreign nationals from their homes before handing some over to police. Among those escorted to police vans were a woman and a small child from Malawi, a stark sign of how quickly the campaign has moved from street pressure to vigilante raids.

The scene marked a hardening of a campaign that began with marches and an unofficial June 30 deadline demanding undocumented migrants leave South Africa. A Zimbabwean man detained by marchers said he was in the country legally and identified himself as a ZEP holder, referring to the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit that allows tens of thousands of Zimbabweans to live and work in South Africa. A community leader in Alexandra defended the push, saying, “Our mandate is clear, we need them to go.”

The July 9 raids followed a wave of anti-migrant protests on June 30 that spanned 120 marches across the country. South African police said 108 were peaceful, while 12 required police intervention, and more than 900 people were arrested. Late that day, one person was shot dead in Alexandra during looting of spaza shops owned by foreign nationals, underscoring how fast the unrest had turned violent in a township already on edge.

Police said the demonstrations were mostly peaceful overall, but they needed reinforcements in several provinces. By July 3, more than 3,000 soldiers had been deployed nationwide to support security during the protests. President Cyril Ramaphosa had already said on June 7 that South Africa would crack down on groups behind xenophobic violence, a pledge that now sits uneasily beside scenes of protesters enforcing their own rules in public streets and private homes.

The violence has landed in a familiar South African fault line, where anger over unemployment, public services and crime is repeatedly redirected toward migrants, many of whom are legally present. Aid groups and regional media have said the unrest has displaced thousands of migrants, while some neighboring governments have begun repatriating their citizens caught in the fallout. In Alexandra, the latest raids showed how protests can curdle into home invasions when state authority looks too slow, too thin or too distant to stop them.