The fires have been burning for months. Migrants are beaten in the streets, schoolchildren riot against foreign classmates, and a charismatic activist whips crowds into a frenzy with warnings that foreigners will “say they discovered us.” Yet for mainstream press, South Africa’s anti-immigrant crisis remains largely invisible.

What is unfolding across the country bears the hallmarks of a pogrom — organised, systematic violence against a minority group — even if its architects prefer the language of immigration enforcement.

At the forefront of the movement is Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, a former Vuma FM radio presenter who founded the March and March movement in 2025 after losing her broadcasting contract. City by city, she has organised and led marches against foreign nationals, encountering little in the way of obstacles from authorities. Her rhetoric has grown increasingly incendiary.

Addressing crowds in Durban, Ngobese-Zuma declared: “Every shop is run by foreigners. Our people are unemployed and they’re busy laughing at us.” She drew explicit parallels with colonialism, warning supporters: “Do you remember how white people treat us? They came to visit and ended up saying they discovered us. One day, these foreigners will say the same.”

At the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, she demanded that all foreign-owned stores in the city be transferred to South African citizens, and accused police officers of corruption, claiming they were colluding with undocumented foreigners. The pogroms have triggered widescale repatriations, with some 600 Ghananian citizens leaving on chartered flights.

Ngobese-Zuma has now announced a major national day of action for June 30, framing the movement in the language of justice and accountability: “Our people want justice,” she declared at a recent press conference in Umhlanga. She has also threatened legal action against media outlets that describe her campaign as vigilantism, a telling sign of her sensitivity to scrutiny.

The violence that has followed in the movement’s wake is not rhetorical. At least seven people have reportedly been killed since March 2026, with videos circulating online showing assaults on men accused of being undocumented immigrants. In the Johannesburg CBD, marchers carrying sjamboks ordered foreign shop owners to shut their businesses. In one incident, marchers surrounded a police van and opened the door to threaten the driver, with a number of men seen carrying firearms during the Johannesburg marches.

The crisis has metastasised into South Africa’s schools. In Kraaifontein, just outside Cape Town, an estimated 700 learners from Masibambane High School and Hector Peterson High School took to the streets last week demanding the removal of foreign nationals from their schools and country. A foreign national was assaulted during the unrest, vehicles were stoned, and roadside stalls were looted. Investigators suspect an external group may have initiated the disruptions by locking school gates to force pupils out into the streets. Disciplinary proceedings are now underway.

The pattern extends across KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, the provinces identified as epicentres of the violence, with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights expressing grave concern over what it has called a persistent pattern of xenophobic violence and vigilante conduct.

The mainstream press has been slower than the crisis demands. Some critics argue that wall-to-wall, unquestioning coverage has legitimised Ngobese-Zuma and her allies as civil society activists — helping normalise anti-immigrant hatred rather than scrutinise it. On social media, the disinformation ecosystem around the marches has been fertile ground for conspiracy theories, with various fringe accounts attempting to discredit foreign correspondents and human rights observers covering the story.

The underlying conditions fuelling the movement are real: South Africa’s unemployment rate exceeds 43 percent, and anti-immigrant groups have successfully scapegoated foreign nationals as the cause of the country’s economic woes, poor service delivery, and crime — despite studies disproving these claims.

What initially appeared to be scattered protests about undocumented immigration has transformed into a broader movement targeting foreign nationals writ large. With local government elections scheduled for November 2026, analysts warn that politicians will continue to exploit anti-immigrant sentiment as an accelerant — and that the worst may be yet to come.

The question is whether South Africa’s institutions, and the world’s attention, will arrive before the fires spread any further.