South Africa: anti-migrant patrols continue, no echo in Italy

In South Africa a movement called “March and March” has for months been holding weekly demonstrations to demand the expulsion of irregular migrants from the country. The group had set an informal ultimatum of 30 June 2026 for foreigners to leave; leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma later announced that the marches would continue for another six months. On 9 July, in Johannesburg, some demonstrators carried out door-to-door searches, handing over to police the migrants they found, including women and children.

The effects are already visible in the numbers from the countries of origin: according to their respective governments, more than 38,000 citizens of Malawi and more than 60,000 of Zimbabwe have returned home. Médecins Sans Frontières has reported a growing humanitarian need among people displaced by these dynamics. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has publicly distanced himself from the groups’ actions, describing such conduct as a form of vigilante justice carried out outside the law.

The relevance criterion for readers here is twofold. First: South Africa is a major regional migration hub; a destabilization of relations with Malawi and Zimbabwe — both involved in mass repatriations — has repercussions for political stability and migratory flows that, historically, do not remain confined to a single continent. Second: the model of volunteer patrols replacing state action in identifying and expelling foreigners is a phenomenon already seen elsewhere in other forms, and its evolution — whether tolerated, normalized or suppressed by the State — constitutes a precedent that can be observed even from afar.

At the time of publication, none of the major Italian outlets appears to have covered the story. The events have been followed by international agencies such as Reuters and AFP, picked up by Al Jazeera and NBC News, but no original articles or reports in Italian appear on the main national general-interest news sites.

Uncertainty remains over the overall displacement figures, since the available data come only from the governments of Malawi and Zimbabwe and not from an independent count or an international body. It is also unclear what the South African government’s operational response has been to date, beyond President Ramaphosa’s public statement against vigilantism.