A wave of anti-migrant violence is spreading across South Africa, leaving at least two Nigerians dead, drawing diplomatic protests from neighbouring countries, and placing President Cyril Ramaphosa's government under growing pressure to respond. Videos circulating online in recent weeks have shown groups of people armed with sticks chasing and beating Black foreign nationals, telling them to leave the country. The Nigerian Consulate in Johannesburg has confirmed the deaths of Amaramiro Emmanuel and Ekpenyong Andrew, both allegedly killed by South African National Defence Force personnel in Port Elizabeth. A formal case has been opened with South African police, and the Consulate has called on the Independent Police Investigative Directorate to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation, underscoring that "no matter what the allegations may be, there are lawful processes and steps to justice."

The current unrest appears to have been ignited in KuGompo — the coastal city formerly known as East London, on South Africa's southeastern coast — when a Nigerian national was ceremonially crowned an "Igbo king." Though the Nigerian High Commission clarified the coronation carried no legal authority, the episode rapidly escalated into street violence targeting foreign nationals indiscriminately: Somali shopkeepers were among those attacked despite having no connection to the event. From there, protests spread across the country, culminating in scenes of public disorder in Durban on 20 and 21 April. Refugee-rights organisations, including the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa, have described the violence as a "well-coordinated wave of xenophobic attacks," with buses reportedly transporting protesters into communities not their own. One of the key organising groups, March and March — founded by a former radio presenter and active in Durban, where it originated a year ago — held a rally outside the presidential offices in Pretoria on Tuesday, drawing several hundred people who accused undocumented migrants of straining the labour market and fuelling insecurity.

The diplomatic fallout has been swift. Ghana summoned the South African representative in Accra after intimidation was directed at a Ghanaian national, and Nigeria's embassy issued security advisories covering multiple cities including Cape Town, Durban and areas of Gauteng Province. Ramaphosa, the day before Tuesday's rally, publicly recalled how African nations had sheltered anti-apartheid activists during the struggle against white-minority rule, and warned against the current xenophobic climate. Yet he also described the protesters' concerns as "legitimate" and pledged stronger border enforcement — a response critics see as ambiguous. The police ministry issued a firm statement warning that "no individual or group has the right to take the law into their own hands."

Analysts and civil society observers argue that the violence is being amplified by political calculation ahead of local government elections, with immigration serving as a mobilising grievance for several parties. Research consistently challenges the core claims driving anti-migrant sentiment: data presented to South Africa's parliament shows undocumented migrants accounted for just over two percent of convicted criminals between 2017 and 2021, and studies by the Institute for Security Studies indicate that immigration has a largely neutral or modestly positive effect on employment, with migrants starting businesses and generating local demand. In many low-income communities, South Africans and migrants are deeply economically intertwined — sharing rentals, workplaces and daily life. That interdependence, observers warn, is precisely what makes the manufactured nature of the violence so damaging: it tears at social fabric that has quietly held together for years.