Pretoria sends envoys across Africa over migrant attacks

Tiisetso MotsoenengFri, June 5, 2026 at 1:35 PM UTC1 min readAdd Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will dispatch special envoys across the continent to manage the diplomatic fallout from weeks of attacks targeting migrants.

The violence has highlighted the depth of anger over an unemployment crisis in Africa's biggest economy. This week, Mozambique said five of its citizens were killed across South Africa; Kenya, Lesotho and Zimbabwe have issued security advisories to their nationals; and Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, and Nigeria have deployed emergency transport to evacuate their citizens.

Political analysts say anti-migrant groups are weaponizing a mix of unemployment and inequality in South Africa, by some measures the most unequal society in the world where almost one in three is jobless. The violence comes weeks after the South African cabinet approved a plan to institutionalize a "First Safe Country" principle, which automatically disqualifies asylum seekers who pass through other safe nations before reaching South Africa.