The situation for foreigners in South Africa is deteriorating, Nigeria’s foreign minister said Monday, as anti-immigrant mobs have convulsed the country and two Nigerians were reported dead under disputed circumstances.
For weeks South Africa has been the site of protests, some of them violent, against undocumented immigrants blamed for taking jobs and resources.
Those with documents have also been targeted as citizens take measures into their own hands over pressing social problems that analysts say are largely due to government failures to provide services.
“There are no signs that the situation is improving,” Nigeria’s foreign minister Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu said while announcing more evacuation flights.
Hundreds of Nigerians, among some tens of thousands of foreigners, have already left South Africa, long a magnet for documented and undocumented African immigrants due to its industrialised economy.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu also reiterated a call for South African authorities to investigate the deaths of two Nigerian nationals, Musa Yunana Joe and Charles Iroegbu, killed amid “the ongoing xenophobic protests and attacks of migrants”.
South African police have said that Joe’s killing did not appear to be related to the protests.
They said they were aware of the reported death of Iroegbu but could not immediately comment.
Chrispin Phiri, foreign ministry spokesman, asked the Nigerian authorities to provide information about their claims saying the South African government had repeatedly asked the Nigerian high commission to submit “any actionable information to our law enforcement authorities, which will enable a thorough, objective investigation in accordance with the rule of law.”
The deaths of foreigners have drawn outsized attention from their home governments amid the heightened tensions — though South Africa has had a longstanding violent crime problem that pre-dates the outbreak of xenophobic violence.
At the same time, South African authorities have been accused of not doing enough to crack down on the violence, which has killed at least four foreign nationals and seen shops owned by immigrants burned and looted.
Separately, Ghana and South Africa last week were embroiled in a diplomatic row following the killing of a Ghanaian national.
Pretoria said the death of Ghanaian national Bashiru Isak was not linked to the anti-immigrant protests.
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