Eastern Cape deploys additional officers as police prepare for June 30 protests

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Police in the Eastern Cape have declared themselves fully prepared for the nationwide June 30 anti-illegal-immigration demonstrations, warning that any attempts to turn peaceful protests into violence, looting or xenophobic attacks will be met with swift and decisive action.

Speaking during a media briefing at Fleet Street Police Station in KuGompo City on Tuesday morning, provincial commissioner Lt-Gen Vuyisile Ncata said the province’s security cluster had activated extensive operational plans amid heightened tension surrounding demonstrations organised by anti-illegal-immigration groups that have called on undocumented foreign nationals to leave the country.

SAPS and Tshwane metro police members gathered at Church Square in Pretoria on Tuesday before the planned anti-illegal immigration marches. The visible law enforcement presence is part of preparations to monitor the demonstrations and maintain public order. Police are expected to be deployed at key locations around the city to manage crowds; ensure the safety of participants and the public; and respond to any potential disruptions. Authorities have urged demonstrators to protest peacefully and to comply with the law during the marches. TimesLIVE

Ncata said the response forms part of a broader national security operation involving law enforcement agencies, intelligence structures and other state partners.

“Let me be unequivocal: the South African Police Service in the Eastern Cape is fully prepared, adequately resourced, and ready to police any planned demonstrations across the province,” Ncata said.

He said that in anticipation of possible unrest, all eight policing districts in the province have been placed on high alert.

Additional officers have been deployed, while joint operational centres will be activated across the province to monitor developments and co-ordinate responses in real time, he said.

Story audio is generated using AI With anti-migrant sentiment escalating in South Africa, Malawian John Allen threw some clothes in a bag, said goodbye to his South African girlfriend and their one-year-old son, and left to catch a bus out of the country. He has now been waiting in a makeshift camp in the city of Durban for four days with thousands of other people hoping to depart before June 30, an unofficial deadline set by anti-immigrant groups for all undocumented foreigners to leave. Although the government has not condoned the deadline and condemns the violence, it has been criticised by other African states and civil society groups for failing to stamp it out. “The reason I would like to stay is I feel bad for my child. He’s too young. When I’m gone, who’s going to support him?” said Allen, 30. The child’s mother, who is South African, only earns about R500 a week as a cleaner, but Allen had been earning four times that doing contract work for a manufacturing company, although he was undocumented. As anti-immigrant protests surged in recent weeks, some of the foreigners in his neighbourhood were beaten up, he said, and now almost everyone has left. “There’s two options: I can lose my life or I can leave,” he told Reuters, standing with other men amid piles of luggage, waiting for a bus. Many migrants still frantically trying to get out Hundreds of people still remained at the giant empty lot in Durban on Monday, where Malawians flocked for safety ahead of protests due on Tuesday to mark the deadline. Although they say they target only illegal immigrants, the vigilantes often don’t discriminate, and many migrants whose status is entirely legal have been attacked or had their property trashed. Women and babies huddled together, sitting on cardboard or blankets, while aid groups handed out food and clothing. Some people have been here for a week waiting their turn, with buses departing one after another. The department of home affairs has set up a tent where it is processing people for deportation, although authorities are currently focused on moving them out of Durban to a border post in Musina ahead of the protests, which many fear will turn violent, as past ones have. No one here wanted to risk staying in South Africa beyond the deadline. Several said they were afraid they might be killed. Amadou Awali looked dejected as he held up his phone to show a photo of a toddler. He is leaving two young sons behind, and their mother doesn’t have the means to support them, he said. “I’m worried for the children,” said Awali, who has been in South Africa doing plumbing and construction work since 2019. He plans to wait a few months and then come back. Reuters

Ncata said the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) will also support police operations in identified areas should additional operational capacity be required.

Potential hotspots, including Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City, Komani, Ngcobo, Sterkspruit, Matatiele, Mthatha and Gcuwa, have been identified

In Buffalo City, security deployments will focus on areas such as the California precinct, Mdantsane and the CBD.

Ncata said intelligence assessments remain fluid.

“This is a moving target. We are constantly receiving updates and reports from crime intelligence and sources within the community about where the hotspots could be. We are adapting our deployments accordingly,” he said.

The warning comes as march organisers forge ahead with their plans.

Story audio is generated using AI March and March founder Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma shared a prayer for spiritual warfare on her social media hours before planned national mass demonstrations calling for illegal foreigners to leave South Africa. “God of Mercy, to you we pray for our country,” she posted along with a prayer that received more than 1,000 comments within an hour. Earlier, Ngobese-Zuma, one of the main drivers behind the anti-migrant sentiment, which has prompted an intense security and police operational response ahead of anticipated violence, warned against disruptions to the marches. “Anyone who loots or causes violence today [Monday] or tomorrow [Tuesday] please can the police arrest them and lock them up. Don’t embarrass us nje please. We are fighting a serious fight la nina nize ngokzomosha. Asidlali la this is the entire country’s future." She also highlighted the end points of the marches — the Point area in Durban, Hillbrow in Johannesburg and Sunnyside in Pretoria, which are said to be crime hotspots for drugs. TimesLIVE

Plans of a march scheduled to start in Southernwood circulated on Tuesday morning.

March and March Qonce co-ordinator Siseko Xatula said they will hold a peaceful protest from Qonce’s town centre to the magistrate office and the police station to submit a memorandum.

Ncata, meanwhile, said they will intensify efforts to prevent a repeat of previous incidents where protests descended into criminality.

“There will be no tolerance for violence. No roads will be closed. There will be no negotiation with people who escalate peaceful protests into violent riots.

“No individual, organisation or community structure has the authority to enforce immigration laws or take the law into their own hands,” said Ncata.

Story audio is generated using AI Protesters have told all undocumented foreign nationals to leave South Africa by Tuesday ahead of anti-immigrant rallies many fear will turn violent. Thousands of foreign Africans are heading home or huddling together in camps for fear of being attacked, though the group organising the protests, March and March, said it is peaceful. Below are details of what the protesters are complaining about, how widespread their views are and how they stack up against reality. Why target African migrants? Anti-immigrant groups have said South Africa is overrun with illegal immigrants who take away jobs from South Africans, use up scarce public services and are responsible for high crime rates. On June 24, Musa Hlongwa, president of the anti-migrant civil group United South Africa, told journalists: “South Africans are tired of standing in long queues in hospitals, competing for spaces in public schools with illegal immigrants, competing for jobs with foreign nationals, tired of Nigerians who are selling drugs to youth of this country.” How many South Africans share their views? Three surveys from last year showed a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment. A Human Sciences Research Council poll showed South Africans were more hostile towards immigrants than ever, with only one in six adults saying they would welcome all foreigners and 42% saying they would welcome none, up from a third in 2021. An Afrobarometer survey showed seven out of 10 South Africans see immigrants’ economic impact as negative, with an overwhelming 85% saying authorities should cut the number of refugees coming in or stop them altogether. Ipsos found nearly three quarters of respondents did not trust immigrants from Africa “at all”. How do the claims compare with reality? Claim 1: SA is being overrun with illegal immigrants A Stats SA survey in 2023 showed there were 3.1-million migrants in South Africa, equivalent to about 4.1% of the population, down from 5.6% a decade ago. That is low by international standards. In Britain the proportion is 17%, Canada 22% and Australia 30%, according to 2024 UN data. Campaigners said the statistics do not reflect the true numbers, which are swollen by undocumented arrivals. However, Stats SA uses census data that is designed to also capture them. “The impression is that there are hordes of people coming into the country, but the data points to the contrary,” said Anthony Kaziboni, senior researcher at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Development in Africa. Claim 2: Foreign nationals are responsible for high crime rate The police do not release data on the nationalities of convicts, but prison population figures from the justice department in 2017 showed 11,842 foreigners were being held in South African prisons, or about 6% of the prison population. Of those, 1,380 were there for entering the country illegally. “All evidence suggests immigrants are disproportionately law-abiding. Most of their crimes are immigration violations,” said Loren B Landau, professor of migration and development at the University of Oxford. Claim 3: African migrants are taking jobs from locals A 2018 World Bank report showed for every migrant employed, about two jobs are created for South Africans through business activity. That is because migrants make money and spend the bulk of it in South Africa on goods and services produced by locals. “If you own a restaurant in South Africa, you have more customers available to you,” said Lauren Gilbert, director of political science data at GeoQuant. “If migrants are living with dubious kitchen facilities [for example] because migrant housing is often bad, they’re more likely to eat street food.” Claim 4: Undocumented migrants use up scarce services Undocumented migrants are highly unlikely to try to use public hospitals or schools, for which they must register, for fear of being found out, Kaziboni said. Health and education services are struggling across the country, but that is mostly due to chronic underinvestment and endemic corruption, according to economists. “To squarely blame immigrants for a failed healthcare crisis is unjust and unfounded. There is no evidence that supports that,” Kaziboni said. “We should blame poor governance, maladministration and corruption,” he said, noting that R1.5-trillion was lost to corruption during former president Jacob Zuma’s term in office, plus R1bn spent on investigating it. Why the xenophobia? Historically, the apartheid government used migrant labour from all over Africa to keep wages low in gold mines and undermine unions, a policy burnt into the collective memory. Today, a third of people are out of work, one of the world’s highest unemployment rates. Poor service delivery cost the ANC its majority in the 2024 elections. Inequality is the highest in the world, by some measures. That all fuels anger that is easy to direct onto migrants. Politicians also stoke it around election time. “Immigrants are by no means the reason why services and the economy have faltered, but people remember what confirms their biases,” Landau said. “What they don’t see is the foreigners investing, trading or providing skills the economy needs.” Reuters

He further revealed that the province’s operational readiness has already been tested through a series of large-scale deployments conducted at the weekend.

He said between June 28 and 29, police arrested 143 undocumented foreign nationals and 57 suspects for various criminal offences. Twelve people were arrested on drug-related charges, six firearms were confiscated and more than 245 kilograms of drugs were seized.

Road blocks and stop-and-search operations resulted in more than 6,500 searches being conducted across the province, while 1,535 vehicles were stopped and inspected. Police also confiscated 1,447l of alcohol valued at approximately R300,000 and recovered two stolen vehicles.

He said Buffalo City emerged as one of the focal points of the province’s security operation. On Sunday alone, officers searched 1,131 vehicles and 956 individuals, inspected shopping centres, taverns, taxi ranks and businesses, and made 44 arrests on various charges. Police also issued 58 traffic fines worth R64,850.

The South African Police Service says it has fully mobilised its resources to maintain public safety and respond rapidly to any security incidents. Speaking ahead of the planned demonstration on Tuesday against illegal immigrants, deputy national police commissioner Lt-Gen Tebello Mosikili said over the past 24 hours, the country has remained stable. “We are now in the full implementation phase of our operational plan. Our operations have been divided into pre-, during- and post-operational implementation phases.

No mass gatherings have been spotted across KuGompo City’s CBD at the time of writing on Tuesday morning despite a large contingent of police officers being dispatched.

The city, according to Ncata, was among several areas across the Eastern Cape identified as hotspots.

Police officials patrolled through the CBD, Southwood and Quigney to monitor developments ahead of the anti-migrant march planned for Tuesday morning.

Despite this, no mass gatherings have been spotted across the city as anticipated.

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