With anti-migrant sentiment escalating in South Africa, Malawian John \u200bAllen threw some clothes in a bag, said goodbye to his South African girlfriend and their \u200cone-year-old son, and left to catch a bus out of the country.<\/p>\n
He has now been waiting in a makeshift camp in the city of Durban for four days with thousands of other people\u00a0hoping to depart before June 30, an unofficial deadline set by anti-immigrant groups for all \u200bundocumented foreigners to leave.<\/p>\n
Although the government has not condoned the deadline and condemns the violence, it has been \u200bcriticized by other African states and civil society groups for failing to stamp it out.<\/p>\n
“The \u2060reason I would like to stay is I feel bad for my child. He’s too young. When I’m gone who’s \u200bgoing to support him?” said Allen, 30.<\/p>\n
The child’s mother, who is South African, only earns about 500 rand ($30) a week \u200bas a cleaner, but Allen had been earning four times that doing contract work for a manufacturing company, although he was undocumented.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“There’s \u200btwo options: I can lose my life or I can leave,” he told Reuters, standing with other men amid piles \u200bof luggage, waiting for a bus.<\/p>\n
MANY MIGRANTS STILL FRANTICALLY TRYING TO GET OUT<\/strong><\/p>\n At least hundreds of people still remained at the giant empty \u200clot \u2060in Durban on Monday, where Malawians flocked for safety ahead of protests due on Tuesday to mark the deadline.<\/p>\n Although they say they target only illegal immigrants, the vigilantes often don’t discriminate, and many migrants whose status is entirely\u00a0legal\u00a0have been attacked or had their property trashed.<\/p>\n Women and babies huddled together, sitting on cardboard or blankets, while aid groups handed out food \u200band clothing. Some people have been \u200bhere for a week \u2060waiting their turn, with buses departing one after another.<\/p>\n The Department of Home Affairs has set up a tent where it is processing people for deportation, although authorities are currently focused \u200bon moving them out of Durban to a border post in Musina ahead of the \u200bprotests, which many \u2060fear will turn violent, as past ones have.<\/p>\n No one here wanted to risk staying in South Africa, beyond the deadline. Several said they were afraid they might be killed.<\/p>\n Amadou Awali looked dejected as he held up his phone to show a photo \u2060of a \u200btoddler. He is leaving two young sons behind, and their mother doesn’t \u200bhave the means to support them, he said.<\/p>\n “I’m worried for the children,” said Awali, who has been in South Africa doing plumbing and construction work \u200bsince 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With anti-migrant sentiment escalating in South Africa, Malawian John \u200bAllen threw some clothes in a bag, said goodbye to his South African girlfriend and their \u200cone-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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,2377,30],"tags":[274,122],"class_list":["post-21242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-migration","category-southern-africa","tag-malawi","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21244,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21242\/revisions\/21244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}