Nearly 15,000 Malawian migrants have been forced to return home after citizen-led groups in South Africa targeted undocumented foreigners, setting an unofficial deadline of June 30 for them to leave the country. The groups accused immigrants of worsening unemployment and straining public services in South Africa, the continent's largest economy and a long-standing destination for migrant workers from neighbouring states. The returnees now face a bleak prospect in Malawi (a landlocked southern African nation where 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line), with many having abandoned jobs and possessions and arriving back with little or nothing to show for their time abroad.