South Africa’s security cluster says it is taking no chances in the final days before the June 30 “deadline” set by anti-illegal immigration campaigners, promising that the chaos of the July 2021 unrest will not be repeated.
In an unusually broad effort to prevent violence as dozens of anti-immigrant marches are expected on Tuesday, close to 10,000 volunteers have been mobilised to monitor neighbourhoods, with KwaZulu-Natal — widely viewed as the epicentre of the planned protest action — receiving particular attention.
Police are leaning heavily on “thousands of ears and eyes on the ground” as part of their operational strategy. Officials have enlisted what they call “ambassadors of safety ”— including private security companies, businesses, religious and cultural leaders, as well as unions — in a bid to present a unified front and keep communities stable in the week ahead.
The urgency is being driven not only by the potential for unrest, but by signs that fear has already taken hold among migrant communities. Thousands of immigrants have left the country in recent days, with buses heading north packed with frightened people who took refuge at makeshift centres.
March and March, the organisation spearheading the anti-illegal immigrant drive, insists Tuesday’s protests will be peaceful. Its leader, Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, used social media to urge supporters to refrain from violence and warned against actions that could distort the movement’s message.
“We don’t want any of those immigrants to be hurt, because it does not portray the message that we want, because a lot of people are trying to make this about hatred. We insist it’s about the rights and laws of the country … It has nothing to do with hatred here.
“We don’t want any message of ours to be distorted through actions of people who are trying to do the wrong thing. So, on June 30, please be on your best behaviour,” she said.
Ngobese-Zuma said the day was meant to pressure government rather than target individuals.
The day is about sending a message to the government, Ngobese-Zuma said.
“We are going to make sure they know that June 30 is a reminder of us not being happy … and how they have allowed illegal immigration to thrive in our country.”
Behind the scenes, senior officials say they are determined to avoid a repeat of July 2021, when hundreds of lives were lost and the economy took at least R50bn in damage. President Cyril Ramaphosa and national security advisers are said to believe they have a workable plan, backed by a major injection of resources: the government has set aside R600m to fund a large law-enforcement effort on the day.
Top government officials told the Sunday Times this week that senior cabinet members have been meeting organisers linked to the March and March campaign. Insiders also indicated that police and defence force deployments would be robust in provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, which have been identified as hotspots.
“The police will be out in full force. Where we might need the defence force, they will be on standby,” said a government source. “But where we might need the private security industry, they have said they are not going to tolerate any nonsense. Even the taxi industry have said they are not going to tolerate nonsense.
“You have never seen law enforcement agencies unified like this, unlike in 2021. This time around the state of preparation is something else. The focus is that there should be no loss of life.”
Government has broadened its engagements beyond security agencies, meeting political parties, traditional leaders, NGOs, student bodies, civic organisations, parliamentary bodies, embassies and ambassadors, as well as businesses and employers. But officials in KwaZulu-Natal have also acknowledged the depth of public anger being expressed over illegal immigration.
KwaZulu-Natal premier Thami Ntuli has admitted government was too slow to respond to rising frustration, conceding that delays helped to fuel tensions ahead of the planned nationwide protests.
“But work is being done,” he said, adding that enhanced deployments would be guided by risk assessments. He urged march organisers to coordinate with local authorities, appoint marshals and keep demonstrations peaceful.
The Zulu royal household, meanwhile, has sought to distance King Misuzulu kaZwelithini from the marches, amid growing concern that the immigration debate is being framed in ethnic terms. The king’s spokesperson, Prince Thulani Zulu, emphasised that the monarch had neither called for nor endorsed the action.
“The king has nothing to do with the march. He has not given any instruction to the people,” Zulu said.
He said the king supports the constitutional right to protest but would never condone violence or attacks on any individual. Zulu also criticised efforts to portray the immigration debate as a Zulu-led campaign.
“We are concerned that people have turned the focus to the Zulu nation as if this is a march of the Zulu nation. This is a national crisis.”
Zulu said the royal household had met a government ministerial delegation and remained open to engagement with human rights organisations if needed. He added there was no reason to anticipate violence because previous marches had been peaceful.
ANC KwaZulu-Natal convener Mike Mabuyakhulu echoed calls for restraint, warning that protesters wearing traditional attire while insulting people who speak other South African languages risked shifting the focus from a national issue to an ethnic confrontation.
“We must not behave in such a way that we bring a traditional element into the issue.”
Community policing structures say they are preparing for more than just Tuesday. KwaZulu-Natal community policing forum provincial secretary Siyanda Biyela said agencies were planning for the demonstrations and heightened tensions ahead of local government elections. Some community leaders argue the most serious risks sit elsewhere.
The eThekwini Neighbourhood Watch’s Musa Dlamini told Ntuli on Friday that political killings linked to candidate selection remained the biggest safety threat for communities. Another CPF member, Rachel Wilkin, said community structures were being squeezed between frightened residents and foreign nationals seeking protection, with no adequate sheltering options.
“We have no safe spaces where these people can be sheltered,” she said, calling for urgent government intervention.
Concerns have also been raised about police capacity on immigration documentation. Chatsworth CPF member Mohale Moloi said some officers struggled to distinguish between documents held by foreign nationals.
“It is important that police know what asylum seeker documents look like, what a purple ID looks like and that refugee documents are different from the IDs South Africans carry,” he said.
In Johannesburg, the anxiety is visible in long-distance bus terminals, where cross-border travel has surged. Depots in downtown Joburg were busy on Sunday as foreign nationals began travelling home.
“We normally only see so many passengers in December and just before the Easter long weekend,” said a Zimbabwean who works at one of the crossborder bus depots in Joburg.
Many passengers, described as young men carrying large amounts of luggage, boarded buses bound for Harare, Bulawayo and Chipinge, while marked police vehicles were stationed outside terminals.
“In Tembisa, locals were knocking on people’s rooms, reminding them that June 30 was around the corner. Nobody from Zimbabwe in the township feels safe,” the depot worker said.
Yet not all foreign nationals are leaving — and some who remain say the problem is not only public hostility, but misinformation and administrative paralysis.
Amira Farah, 33, a naturalised citizen of Somali descent, said she will stay in South Africa, which has been her home since childhood. But memories of the 2008 xenophobic attacks still shape her fears.
“I was young in 2008, but I remember everything and that people were burnt alive,” she said.
Farah, a mother of five and owner of a clothing shop in the city, said she will keep her business closed on Tuesday and stay at home. She believes protest action can quickly spiral.
It was very easy for protests to descend into chaos. “Shops can be looted and people can get hurt.” Farah said.
She stressed that even legal status does not guarantee safety when crowds act on assumption rather than fact.
“My business is registered and the government knows me because I have all the documentation,” she said. “But people who are protesting don’t know who you are or what documentation you have. They just see someone they think is an illegal foreigner.”
Farah was five when her family fled Somalia after civil war broke out in 1991. After time in the Middle East, her parents sought asylum in South Africa, where her father opened a clothing store in Mpumalanga and was affectionately nicknamed “Mahlangu”. She attended a private boarding school near Siyabuswa, learnt several local languages including Afrikaans, and later moved to Johannesburg in search of better opportunities. Now, she fears heightened anti-immigrant sentiment — amplified by misinformation online — could put documented immigrants and South Africans of foreign descent at risk.
“People have the right to protest, but I’m praying that it remains peaceful,” she said.
Mozambican Fernando Zitha is also staying. The 35-year-old auto electrician, who has lived in Orlando, Soweto, for nearly two decades, says his biggest concern is not threats or slogans, but what he calls “systematic delays” at the department of home affairs. He has spent more than a decade trying to finalise a residence application as he works to build a better life for his two children in Maputo.
He said he is not intimidated because he believes he has contributed positively through honest work.
“I am not a criminal. I work every day and help people fix their cars. This is the only life I know.”
Zitha arrived in South Africa at 16 with his father, who mentored him in auto-electrical work after settling in Orlando. He said he has been doing repairs across Soweto and surrounding areas for more than 12 years, building a loyal customer base. But without finalised documentation, he says his livelihood is capped.
“The problem is that I can’t register the business or even have a bank account because my permit is not finalised,” he said.
Despite growing anti-foreigner sentiment in parts of the country, Zitha said he has never experienced hostility in Orlando — a reminder, as Tuesday approaches, that South Africa’s immigration debate is not only about borders and enforcement, but about fear, identity, governance and whether the state can prevent public anger from tipping into violence.
