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.
