Keypoints:
- Ramaphosa condemns migrant intimidation
- About 178,000 migrants have returned home
- Crisis tests SADC regional integration
SOUTH African President Cyril Ramaphosa says the country is ‘deeply concerned and ashamed’ over the discrimination and ill-treatment of foreign nationals, as a mass migrant exodus deepens pressure on Pretoria and tests Southern Africa’s commitment to regional integration.
His intervention goes beyond another condemnation of xenophobia. Home-country governments say about 178,000 migrants have returned from South Africa in recent months, while Pretoria has recorded tens of thousands of deportations and assisted repatriations. The scale of the movement is exposing a central contradiction between SADC’s ambition for closer regional integration and growing hostility towards African migrants inside its largest industrial economy.
Ramaphosa draws the line
Ramaphosa made the remarks on August 14 during a public lecture at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban ahead of the 46th Southern African Development Community summit.
TRT Afrika, citing Anadolu Agency, reported on the president’s unusually forceful intervention, while the full remarks were published by the South African Presidency.
Speaking about SADC’s ambitions for an increasingly integrated region, Ramaphosa warned governments could not promote solidarity and freer regional movement at official gatherings while foreign nationals faced discrimination at community level.
‘We cannot preach integration at summits and practise exclusion in our streets,’ he said.
Ramaphosa also said South Africans were ‘deeply concerned and ashamed’ that nationals of neighbouring countries and elsewhere on the continent had experienced ill-treatment.
The intervention comes as immigration becomes an increasingly volatile political issue in South Africa.
178,000 migrants return home
Figures compiled by the Associated Press from governments receiving returning nationals put the number at about 178,000.
Zimbabwe has reported more than 115,000 returnees since late May, while Malawi has recorded more than 56,000. Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique and Lesotho have also received returning citizens.
The figure should not be interpreted as 178,000 formal deportations.
South African authorities say they have deported or assisted with the repatriation of 82,875 people, while receiving countries have recorded a larger number of citizens returning through different channels.
The distinction is important because the movement includes both people removed by South African authorities and migrants who decided to leave voluntarily amid heightened immigration enforcement and fears over anti-foreigner hostility.
The financial burden is also growing. South Africa is seeking $18m in repatriation costs, underlining how the migration crisis is increasingly becoming a fiscal as well as diplomatic problem.
Economic pressure feeds tensions
South Africa’s official unemployment rate rose to 33.6 percent in the second quarter of 2026, according to Statistics South Africa, intensifying political pressure over jobs, housing and access to public services.
Anti-immigration groups argue undocumented migrants compete with South Africans for scarce employment opportunities and public resources.
But the departure of large numbers of foreign workers has also exposed South Africa’s dependence on migrant labour in agriculture and other labour-intensive industries.
The migrant exodus has already raised concerns about disruption to parts of the South African economy, complicating political narratives that portray foreign workers only as a burden.
Ramaphosa has sought to draw a clear distinction between enforcing immigration laws and allowing civilians to intimidate or attack foreign nationals.
Diplomatic fallout spreads
The crisis is no longer confined to South African domestic politics.
Ghana has emerged as one of the countries pressing Pretoria over the treatment of African migrants.
Ghana evacuated citizens from South Africa as tensions escalated, while Accra also pushed for the wider problem of xenophobia to receive African Union attention.
Two Ghanaian nationals subsequently petitioned the International Criminal Court in July, asking prosecutors to examine attacks against foreign nationals that they alleged could constitute crimes against humanity.
South Africa rejected that characterisation, maintaining that its domestic institutions are capable of investigating discrimination and violence.
The dispute has nevertheless increased diplomatic pressure on Ramaphosa at a time when Pretoria is seeking to project itself as a champion of African integration.
SADC faces its contradiction
That contradiction was at the heart of Ramaphosa’s Durban address.
SADC promotes closer trade, infrastructure connectivity and movement across national borders. Yet growing hostility towards migrants in South Africa threatens the political foundations of that project.
Ramaphosa argued that Southern Africa itself was shaped by migration and said the region should ultimately make it easier for people to move under agreed laws and protocols.
His remarks acknowledge a credibility problem Pretoria can no longer easily avoid.
South Africa can insist on secure borders and lawful migration while still protecting foreigners from intimidation and violence. The political challenge is ensuring the first objective does not become justification for abandoning the second.
For SADC, the stakes are broader. Regional integration will ultimately be judged not simply by communiqués, trade agreements or summit declarations, but by whether citizens of neighbouring African states can live, work and travel without becoming targets of exclusion.
Ramaphosa’s admission that South Africa is ‘ashamed’ therefore carries weight beyond the immediate controversy. It raises a harder question for Southern Africa: whether the solidarity celebrated in summit halls can survive on the streets of the region’s biggest economy.
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