Mass Expulsions Uproot South Africa's Most Vulnerable; Churches Face Fracturing Communitie

Thousands of ordinary people, including Anglican clergy and church workers, have been uprooted from their homes across South Africa this month as the March & March Movement presses employers and landlords to expel undocumented migrants ahead of a July 1, 2026 deadline. More than 178,000 people have fled the country, leaving faith communities fractured and raising urgent questions about the safety and dignity of continental African residents living within South Africa’s borders.

The human cost is vivid in the story of the Rev. Joseph Tendai, a 75-year-old retired Anglican priest from Zimbabwe’s Mwenezi District in Masvingo Province. Tendai arrived in South Africa in 1982, shortly after Zimbabwe gained independence, and spent four decades serving Anglican congregations there. He is married to a South African woman and has four adult children and six grandchildren living in the country. On a day in July, neighbors warned him that attackers were approaching. “I came out in slippers and fled a mid-confusion of people screaming as the attackers moved into my compound, singing a heroic Zulu song ‘Siyahamba,’ meaning, ‘we are marching,’” he told The Living Church. He left with only the clothes on his body.

Tendai is now displaced and dependent on the charity of Christian supporters. “I have nothing of my own other than faith, blood and flesh,” he said, expressing gratitude to those providing him shelter, clothing, and basic necessities. He remains determined to return once conditions stabilize, having spent more than half his life in South Africa and knowing the country far better than his birthplace.

The Anglican Church hierarchy has responded with formal condemnation. On July 11, the synod of the Diocese of Cape Town, led by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, the primate of Southern Africa, issued a resolution expressing “deep sorrow and heartfelt apology to our brothers and sisters from across the African continent who have experienced fear, rejection or hostility within our country.” The synod acknowledged that xenophobic violence has displaced foreign nationals, including women and children forced to sleep outdoors in freezing winter conditions.

The resolution identifies a deeper structural problem. “South Africa is facing a crisis of crime, unemployment and a failure in service delivery, but the justified anger over these is blamed on foreign migrants by populist movements,” the synod stated. The church also apologized for its own silence, acknowledging failure “to speak out against hate speech and xenophobia.” The Diocese of Cape Town has requested that Makgoba write an open letter to affected countries, particularly to Anglican bishops in Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, and has committed to meeting with leaders of anti-migrant movements, including March & March and Operation Dudula-Western Cape, for what it termed “courageous conversations” about root causes and possible solutions.

Attempts to engage with the movement itself proved unsuccessful. The Living Church contacted Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, founder and leader of March & March and a radio personality, who initially agreed to receive questions but subsequently declined to respond.

Meanwhile, church leaders report that while immigrant church workers have been broadly affected, no South African bishops reported losing clergy members to the expulsions. The Rt Rev. Nkosinathi Ndwoba, Bishop of Natal, stated that his diocese employs only two Zimbabwean clergy and one Malawian, and would welcome qualified foreign clergy if vacancies arose. The South African Council of Churches documented in June that immigrant-led churches have faced systematic hostility, including verbal abuse, intimidating graffiti on church walls, and isolated threats of physical violence. Some have called for laws blocking foreign nationals from registering or managing churches.

The irony has not escaped church commentators. Bishop Stephen Diseko of Matlosane and others have noted that South Africa itself depended on continental solidarity during the apartheid struggle. Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Angola sheltered thousands of South African political refugees in the late twentieth century. “South Africa should be ashamed. Wrong people are targeted and not the ones who are responsible for this whole mess, our government,” Bishop Ndwandwe said. “The expulsion of our sisters and brothers from the continent of Africa, in the manner they were chased out is shameful and unacceptable.”

Whether the church’s promised “courageous conversations” with anti-migrant movements will translate into any protection for the tens of thousands still displaced remains an open question, and one that the communities sleeping outdoors in a South African winter cannot afford to wait long for an answer to.