Source: AFP

Zimbabwean farmworker Aaron Majatamhe was heading home at sunset after a shift in one of South Africa’s top fruit-producing regions, where bushes laden with bright unpicked citrus stood in rows.

“I see a lot of farm owners who are crying now… people have to harvest those naartjies but there is no one,” the 33-year-old told AFP.

The same shortage, he said, is looming in the vineyards. “It’s time to cut off the grapes and there is no one.”

Similar scenes are playing out across South Africa as factories, farms and even ordinary households scramble for labour after thousands of foreign workers left in a matter of weeks to escape deadly anti-migrant protests and intensified immigration enforcement.

Fringe anti-foreigner groups had set June 30 as an unofficial deadline for undocumented migrants to go home, triggering the exodus of more than 160,000 people, according to an AFP tally based on figures from African governments repatriating their citizens.

Zimbabwe, which accounted for the largest share of those returning, said many had worked in South Africa’s farming, domestic work and construction sectors.

The first cracks were felt almost immediately in KwaZulu-Natal’s sugar belt.

One farmer on the north coast said he lost up to 80% of his cane-cutting workforce virtually overnight.

“Production and supply have deteriorated to the point where it is going to be difficult for the mills to stay open,” he said, speaking anonymously because he feared retaliation.

‘Back-breaking’ work

Another grower near Mid-Illovo, a region of rolling hills south of Durban, said most cane cutters in his area came from Lesotho, the tiny kingdom encircled by South Africa.

“There are fields we are supposed to be cutting, but there are just not enough people. Local people don’t like this job because it is back‑breaking and physical,” he said.

That argument is fiercely disputed.

With unemployment above 33% — and far higher when discouraged job seekers are included — labour unions and researchers argue there is no shortage of South Africans willing to work.

Instead, they say, many employers favour migrant workers because they are cheaper, more flexible and less likely to demand formal contracts, benefits or legal protections.

“They are making a profit out of foreign nations,” said Patrick Williams, a local organiser with the Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union.

Foreign farmworkers, he said, routinely worked seven days a week, skipped lunch breaks to maximise piece-rate earnings and were often paid below the national minimum wage.

Locals first

For employers, the challenge is not only finding workers, but replacing years of experience.

In Durban’s Chatsworth industrial area, a manager at a clothing factory said the departure of skilled machinists from Malawi and Mozambique had left factories struggling to meet orders.

“We can barely meet our targets because most were forced to go,” she said on condition of anonymity, adding it would take time for local workers to master the job.

The government has sought to respond to public anger over migration by promoting a “locals first” approach, while acknowledging that some industries rely on foreign skills and labour.

Last week it expanded its Trusted Employer Scheme that fast-tracks worker visas for companies that meet requirements including predominantly employing South Africans, investing in skills development and operating in priority sectors.

Industry groups are urging the government to create legal pathways for seasonal foreign labour, arguing that sectors such as agriculture have become dependent on migrant workers and cannot replace them overnight.

South Africa should consider a regulated seasonal worker programme similar to one in the United States, said Siyabonga Madlala, chief executive of the South African Farmers Development Association.

“There may be a need for a special dispensation allowing seasonal labour from SADC countries where local supply is insufficient,” he told Newsroom Afrika, referring to the 16-member Southern African Development Community bloc.

More than 60% of South Africa’s immigrants are estimated to come from SADC.

Yet for many who left, the debate over labour policy has been eclipsed by fears for their safety after at least four foreigners were killed, according to police data.

Wayne Chimbadzwa Mutasa, a Zimbabwean national who had lived in Robertson since 2014, said he left after foreign workers were targeted in door-to-door raids.

“The people who came into the houses of Zimbabweans were police officers saying that you are living here illegally,” he told AFP as he prepared for repatriation.

His fellow national Majatamhe, the farm worker, has decided to remain for now.

“We are afraid to stay even in this place, but the problem is, we don’t have enough money to go home,” he said.

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I left my wife and twins behind – why this Nigerian man fled South Africa

ByMakuochi Okafor, BBC Africa, Reporting fromLagos and Thomas Naadi, BBC Africa, Reporting fromAccra

• Published9 hours ago

Nigerian Richard Itoro is not sure when he will see his twin children again.

Fearing for his safety as the anti-migrant protests cranked up in South Africa this year, the 47-year-old left his family and business behind in Johannesburg and boarded one of the voluntary repatriation flights to Nigeria in June.

His is just one of many experiences that is fuelling diplomatic tension and threatening to rupture relations between South Africa and other countries on the continent.

Tens of thousands of foreigners have left the country over the past two months.

“It was painful for me to leave [the] person who’s my best friend,” Itoro tells the BBC, with tears welling up, as he reflects on saying goodbye to his South African wife.

Over 15 years, he had built up a car-dealership business, bought a home and created a family. That is now all gone for him.

Itoro became the target of harassment but his wife was not spared the intimidation.

He says his neighbours told her: “You’re married to a Nigerian. Those of you who are married to Nigerians we are supposed to arrest you people.

“You guys betrayed us. Go and leave the country with your husband and don’t be here.”

Itoro was baffled.

“My family was just a small family, which was beautiful and peaceful. I had no issues with anybody.”

The pressure became too much.

“If I go home and start all over again, it’s better than being here, being harassed, being scared for my life,” Itoro says.

But, the businessman says, the Nigerian high commission would not let his wife and children travel with him.

He describes how leaving felt like a movie where someone boards the last helicopter flight out of a besieged city.

“I wish I could have just begged the people from the embassy and said: ‘This is my wife, I can’t leave her behind and my kids,’ but I couldn’t.

“So my car started departing and I wished I had told her not to cry.”

The anti-migrant groups in South Africa said their protests were aimed at undocumented foreigners. The country’s outspoken Culture Minister, Gayton McKenzie, who leads one of the parties in the coalition government, also emphasised this point.

“We say South Africa is open to our brothers on the continent but come here legitimately. Come with your papers,” he told the BBC’s Interview programme.

But Itoro says his legal status did not protect him from hostility as he shows the BBC a copy of the document that he says proves he had the right to stay in the country.

He was not alone, according to the Nigerian authorities.

“We have records of Nigerians who have legitimate papers to remain in South Africa, yet they have been attacked,” Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sola Enikanolaiye said during a recent meeting with South Africa’s Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola.

The temperature was raised last week following the death of a Nigerian who was killed as police were arresting him over suspected drug offences. An independent body is now investigating.

Lamola maintained that South Africa deals with those who take the law into their own hands, but added that President Cyril Ramaphosa was also “very firm on South Africa’s sovereign right to enforce its immigration laws”.

Despite the diplomatic efforts, South Africa’s reputation has been severely damaged.

Not least because of images and videos circulating on social media. Not all of them were what they were purported to be, but one, involving a Ghanaian, was genuine and it sparked huge concern once it started being shared in April.

When Emmanuel Asamoah left Ghana in 2023 for South Africa, he was chasing the kind of opportunity many migrants dream about.

The 37-year-old hairstylist settled in Soweto, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, found work, built a life and believed he had a future in one of Africa’s biggest economies.

But three months ago that future suddenly felt uncertain when he was surrounded by a group of South Africans who demanded that he leave. The confrontation was captured on video.

“This thing of you guys moving from one country to another… is no longer working,” one woman can be seen telling Asamoah.

“Now, we are making it very clear to you guys, we don’t want you here. We want you to fix your countries.”

Having returned to Ghana’s capital, Accra, in May, Asamoah tells the BBC that the encounter left him terrified.

“They came to me and started pushing me… So, they started asking questions and harassing me… they said that I should go home, that we are spoiling their country, because of us, they don’t eat, we are taking their girlfriends,” he says.

South Africa’s high jobless rate – standing at more than 30% – is seen as one of the factors fuelling the tension. It was a sentiment echoed by McKenzie.

“No man can feed another man’s children while his children are starving. Our people are starving of jobs,” he said backing calls for those who came to the country without papers to leave.

But Asamoah insists he had a stamp in his passport giving him permission to stay.

“I was not illegal. I was legal in South Africa. That’s why I told them that, they can take me to the police station so that we can go to Home Affairs and verify,” he says.

For Asamoah, returning home has brought an unexpected fresh start.

With support from a Ghanaian businessman, he has opened a cement business and is determined to build his future.

“My brothers and sisters in South Africa. I’m in Ghana now. I’m fixing my country,” he says.

But Ghana’s government remains angry at the way it sees its citizens are being viewed in South Africa.

In an interview with the BBC, Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa spoke about how he saw it as going against the spirit of continental solidarity and a failure to recognise how African countries helped in the struggle against apartheid, which ended in 1994.

South Africa “should be the epitome of Pan-Africanism. We talk about African integration. We talk about free movement… even if you have issues with high immigration, is this how you resolve it?”, the minister asked.

In Lagos, Itoro is still pining for his family.

“It’s not easy. But we talk every day, and I’m broken. There is hope, because… my wife is going to join me very soon, as soon as God lifts me up. But it was heartbreaking, and that’s how I felt: like I lost everything,” he says.

Additional reporting by Abayomi Adisa