Pan-African Parliament lawmakers have moved to force an urgent debate on the wave of attacks against African migrants in South Africa, tabling a motion that seeks a unified continental response before the current sitting closes.
The motion emerged from the parliament’s east and west regional caucuses during the First Ordinary Session of the Seventh Pan-African Parliament, which opened on 27 July and runs until 31 July at the institution’s headquarters in Midrand, Gauteng.
West African regional caucus chairperson Lazare Yao Yao presented the motion, and it was seconded by East African regional caucus chairperson Danson Mungatana of Kenya, The Namibian reported. Both leaders urged the plenary to prioritise the matter before the session ends.
In their joint submission, the two caucus chairs said the Pan-African Parliament has a responsibility to speak with one voice in defending the dignity, safety and rights of African citizens across the continent. They called for a continental response reflecting Africa’s shared values of solidarity and protection of its people, particularly vulnerable African migrants in South Africa
The motion follows weeks of xenophobic violence targeting African migrants in South Africa, much of it driven by fringe groups and organised networks accusing foreign nationals of fuelling crime and unemployment. According to JURIST, at least four migrants have been killed since March, while more than 160,000 foreign nationals have left the country, either through deportation or under the threat of violence.
Anti-migrant groups had set an unofficial deadline of 30 June for undocumented migrants to leave South Africa, a demand that coincided with a sharp escalation in attacks despite the deadline passing without official recognition from Pretoria.
Civil society monitors following the crisis say hostility towards African migrants in South Africa has grown more organised in recent weeks, shifting from sporadic street confrontations to coordinated raids on informal settlements and migrant-run businesses.
President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the same session on Monday, telling parliamentarians that South Africa had taken a firm stand against hatred for people from other countries, xenophobia or Afrophobia, and had strengthened its laws to defuse tension while upholding the rights of foreign nationals within its borders, according to African Insider.
Ramaphosa also called on the Pan-African Parliament to take up the mantle of leadership in finding sustainable solutions to migration challenges, arguing that Africa’s development should be measured not only by freedom of movement across borders but by the opportunity, dignity and hope every country offers its own citizens, JURIST reported.
The president urged member states to jointly tackle the root causes pushing people to migrate, citing conflict, instability, weak governance, poverty and social inequality as the underlying drivers behind the growing movement of African migrants in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent.
This is not the first time the continental legislature has confronted violence against African migrants in South Africa. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights previously condemned similar attacks through resolutions adopted after the 2008 and 2015 waves of xenophobic violence, in which dozens of foreign nationals were killed, according to the commission’s own records.
Those earlier resolutions urged Pretoria to protect African migrants in South Africa from mob violence and to prosecute perpetrators, yet lawmakers now tabling the fresh motion argue the underlying pattern has persisted for close to two decades.
The current motion places the safety of African migrants in South Africa squarely before the Seventh Parliament’s first sitting, with lawmakers from both the east and west African blocs pressing for the debate to happen before delegates disperse on 31 July. Whether the plenary grants the request, and what continental measures might follow, will depend on the outcome of that debate.
For now, the tabling of the motion signals that MPs from across the continent view the safety of African migrants in South Africa as a matter demanding coordinated attention rather than a domestic dispute for Pretoria alone to resolve.
