Men adorned in traditional Zulu attire, affiliated to the March and March movement, continue to march through the streets of Durban, calling for the removal of illegal foreign nationals in the country.
Thirty days after May Day, and a week after Africa Day, Nhlamulo Sambo, a 19-year-old South African citizen from Giyani, Limpopo, was killed for being in the wrong place. Or speaking in a different tongue… He was a victim of racial profiling where fellow inhabitants take it upon themselves to police others based on the colour of their skin, language, place of origin, nationality, or other made-up criterion.
The authorities are missing in action and permit this lawlessness to reign supreme.
The stabbing took place on May 31, 2026. On May 1, International Workers' Day, we reiterated our call for workers of the world to unite, and on May 25, Africa Day, we celebrated African unity, our cultural diversity, and our journey towards an Africa that can hold its head up high as it carves its own way in this fractious world.
Sambo was killed in KwaNonqaba, Mossel Bay, which is in the Western Cape province – a significant segment that has demanded to secede from the country. According to his family, being a Xitsonga speaker in a predominantly isiXhosa-speaking community may have been one of the reasons he was unjustly killed. He was moved from where he lived and attacked during the recent afrophobic protests in Mossel Bay, Western Cape. He was wrongly "accused" of being a foreigner. His mother, Nkateko Sambo, called for assistance as she said: "They killed my son like a dog, saying that he is a foreigner, whereas my son is a Tsonga, a South African citizen."
