An Air Peace flight brought 268 Nigerians from Johannesburg to Lagos on 3 July, completing a third humanitarian evacuation that has returned 801 Nigerians in under a month, Nigerian officials said. The airlift is part of a wider exodus: Kenya has flown out more than 150 citizens, with a final flight scheduled for 9 July, while Ghana, Malawi and Mozambique have also organized buses and flights for their nationals. The departures follow a campaign by citizen anti-immigrant groups that fixed a 30 June deadline for undocumented foreigners to leave South Africa, staging mass marches and, in some cases, forcibly entering homes.

The Nigerian high commission in Pretoria had announced it was documenting abandoned businesses and properties with the intention of seeking compensation from South Africa. Pretoria swiftly rejected the idea. “There will be no compensation from government,” South Africa’s minister in the presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, said on 3 July, arguing that legally registered property can be sold on the open market while shacks in informal settlements are illegal and therefore ineligible. She further called on Nigerian authorities to disclose “where the drug dens of Nigerians are” so that police could “clean the drugs.” A former Nigerian senator described the remarks as unfit for a senior official. South Africa’s foreign ministry later indicated that transparent claims could be assessed case-by-case, though no formal process had begun.

Police reported that at least two Mozambicans, an Ethiopian and a Malawian had been killed in the latest bout of anti-immigrant violence. The death of a Ghanaian national, Bashiru Isak, in Cape Town on 30 June deepened a diplomatic rift: Ghana’s foreign ministry says he was killed during demonstrations, but South Africa’s justice minister called that account “factually incorrect.” Videos circulating on social media showed Nigerians in one area forming a defensive line, some armed with machetes, as police stood between them and a group of residents; no official statement has confirmed the incident. South African authorities maintain that many of those repatriated were in the country illegally—a claim Nigerian officials dispute.

Commentators in South America note that anti-immigrant sentiment is fuelled by the governing African National Congress’s crisis of legitimacy, with unemployment above 45 per cent and a vast informal economy in which foreign traders are highly visible. An estimated 3 to 4 million immigrants, many undocumented, live in South Africa. Kenyan consular staff in Pretoria said only a fraction of the 27,000 Kenyans in the country had sought evacuation, setting a 7 July registration deadline for the final flight. By late this week, more than 25,000 people from various nations had been processed for departure by South African authorities, who also arrested roughly 900 people for immigration offences and looting. Diplomatic channels remain open, with Nigerian officials pledging to continue engagement “at the highest level.”