South Africa started processing undocumented migrants at a temporary repatriation centre in Musina, a border town with Zimbabwe, in July 2026. This followed weeks of intensified anti-migrant rhetoric and xenophobic violence.
The facility has raised questions about whether the country could be moving towards a more camp-based approach to managing migrants and refugees. This would mark a significant departure from South Africa’s post-apartheid refugee policy. South Africa has generally allowed refugees and asylum seekers to live, work and study in urban centres rather than confining them to designated refugee camps. As of 2025, the country hosted more than 160,000 refugees and asylum seekers from places like Zimbabwe, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.
Franzisca Zanker and Ulrike Krause have studied refugee governance and encampment across Africa, including in South Africa. As migration becomes an increasingly charged political issue in South Africa, they examine what refugee encampment is.
Who counts as a refugee and what are the legal protections in place?
Legally speaking, all refugees are migrants. But not all migrants are refugees. A refugee is someone who has crossed an international border in search of protection because they fear persecution on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group.
