For months, anti-migrant rhetoric had been building across South Africa. Then it reached Kaunga Nyirenda’s doorstep.

In early June, two men gave the Malawian gardener, who lives in a Johannesburg suburb, a chilling ultimatum: leave now or face death.

“They asked me: ‘When are you going to leave the country? We want to fix our country. If you don’t leave now, you’re going to leave in a coffin because we don’t need anyone after 30th of June,’” he said of the ultimatum.

Nyirenda’s experience reflects a broader surge in anti-immigrant sentiment. In recent weeks, protest groups and self-styled vigilantes, who insist their rallies are peaceful, have staged demonstrations that have appeared to spark violent attacks on both documented and undocumented foreign nationals who are being blamed for taking jobs from South Africans, committing crimes and straining public services.

The South African government has rejected the so-called “deadline” made by the groups for foreigners to leave the country, as fears grow of a violent climax at the end of the month.

One of the groups, March & March, called for mass protests on Tuesday if its demands, including the “immediate and massive deportation of all illegal foreigners currently in the country,” are not met.

Ahead of the planned demonstrations, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa warned that the government “will not tolerate any attempts to destabilize the country by anyone, whether marching or otherwise.”

He has repeatedly condemned attacks on foreign nationals, saying they “do not represent the views of South Africa’s people, nor reflect our government’s policy.” He blamed the violence on “opportunists who are exploiting the legitimate grievances, particularly those of the poor, under the false guise of ‘community activism.’” Ramaphosa said security forces were on high alert to respond to any unrest.

Migrants fear for their safety

As tensions escalate, police in South Africa have opened investigations into the recent murders of several foreign nationals.

Police said two Mozambican men were killed during violence in late May in Mossel Bay, a coastal town in the Western Cape, where more than 50 shacks in an informal settlement were burned. Mozambique later said five of its citizens had died in what it described as “xenophobic attacks.”

Authorities are also investigating the death of a Malawian man after he was allegedly killed by a mob at an informal settlement in the city of Pietermaritzburg, near Durban. The attack forced hundreds of migrants to seek shelter in churches and mosques, according to state broadcaster SABC.

With the end of the month fast approaching, the migrant exodus has continued as fear of further mob attacks spreads through poor neighborhoods and informal settlements.

It is unclear what the anti-migrant groups will do once their deadline has passed. But one video posted to social media that appears to show a young man wielding a machete and counting down to the deadline has put migrants like Nyirenda on edge.

What’s behind the deadline

The current unrest has grown out of campaigns against undocumented migrants led by groups including the March & March movement and Operation Dudula, whose name in Zulu roughly translates as “push back” or “force out.”

Operation Dudula has targeted foreign-owned businesses, stopped people in the streets to check identification documents and sought to block foreign nationals from accessing public hospitals.

Another leading figure is Nkosikhona Ndabandaba, known as “Phakel’umthakathi.” With more than 1.7 million Facebook followers, he has mobilized demonstrations featuring men dressed in traditional Zulu warrior regalia and told CNN he was the architect of the June 30 deadline.

In one video, he tells a Congolese man to leave South Africa without asking whether he is in the country legally.

“June 30 is the deadline, but you don’t have to wait until then — leave now,” he says, adding that after Tuesday, “I can’t control the people of South Africa.”

Ndabandaba later told CNN his campaign targets undocumented migrants of all nationalities and denied his supporters had engaged in violence, blaming unrest on other groups.

South Africa’s Border Management Authority says more than 13,000 foreign nationals — including about 9,000 Malawians, 3,000 Zimbabweans, 900 Ghanaians, and 300 Nigerians — have either been voluntarily repatriated or deported in the last fortnight.

Ramaphosa acknowledged “the challenge of illegal immigration,” saying his government was addressing it. He said undocumented migration places pressure on public services and “distorts the labor market” by enabling some employers to exploit cheaper labor. Even so, he warned against making migrants scapegoats for South Africa’s economic hardships.

More than three decades after the end of apartheid — a racist system that confined Black South Africans to low-paid, controlled labor while reserving most of the country’s land, quality education and high-paying jobs for the White minority — South Africa continues to grapple with high unemployment, one of the world’s highest murder rates, and deep racial inequality.

A familiar cycle of violence

Attacks on foreign nationals are not new to South Africa, which has experienced repeated waves of xenophobic violence. More than 3 million immigrants — about 5 per cent of the population — live in the country, most having arrived from neighboring Southern African countries in search of work, according to the national statistics agency.

South Africa’s unemployment rate stood at 32 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 after 350,000 jobs were lost, with young people hardest hit, the agency’s data shows.

Yet despite those struggles, South Africa, one of Africa’s leading industrial economies, remains a destination for migrants willing to take low-paying jobs in domestic work, security and agriculture.

André Duvenhage, research director at South Africa’s North-West University, said migrants are often hired because employers see them as willing to work for lower wages and as non-citizens, they are typically not protected by as many labor protections. Employers also perceive them as having “higher work ethics than some of our ordinary citizens,” he said.

Anti-immigrant resentment has long focused on migrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, with similar hostility directed at Ghanaians and Nigerians.

Tonye Irims, who runs solar energy companies in Nigeria and South Africa, told CNN the hostility is broadly directed at “any suspected Black African migrant living and doing business in proximity to (low-income) South African Black communities.”

He described the violence as “heavily racialized and classed,” noting that wealthier foreigners and White residents are rarely targeted.

The latest tensions have revived memories of the xenophobic violence of 2008, which killed at least 62 people and displaced thousands. Deadly attacks flared again in 2015 and 2019.

What’s driving anti-migrant sentiment?

Irims said South Africa’s economy remains largely controlled by a wealthy White Afrikaner minority, leaving many Black South Africans with limited economic opportunities. Unable to challenge what he described as “the high-level political and corporate structures responsible for their poverty,” he said, many instead direct their frustrations at “defenseless Black immigrants.”

While apartheid-era inequality remains central to political debate, he said anger toward the White minority is largely expressed through legal and political channels, while Black African migrants bear the brunt of street-level violence.

He called it a paradox: migrants face the greatest risk of xenophobic attacks yet receive little international protection, while “the group (White South Africans) that retains significant economic privilege and is protected by elite private security and fortified suburban infrastructure is granted expedited political asylum abroad.”

He was referring to the United States’ decision to resettle Afrikaners after US President Donald Trump claimed that “a genocide is taking place” in South Africa and that “White farmers are being brutally killed and their land confiscated.”

For Malawian gardener Nyirenda, the protests are “hypocritical” because, he said, they selectively target Black African migrants.

Despite having made South Africa his home over the past 16 years, the 38-year-old told CNN he has decided to return to Malawi.

“They (the protesters) only have energy for fellow poor Black Africans,” he said.

“Why fight someone who is hungry like you while leaving the ones who have taken all your wealth?”