BBC Africa Eye gains rare access to Operation Dudula, South Africa's prominent anti-migrant movement.
South African vigilante group Operation Dudula has become notorious for raiding businesses belonging to foreign nationals and forcing shops to close. BBC Africa Eye has gained rare access to members of the country's most-prominent anti-migrant street movement.
"He started smoking drugs when he was 14 years old," she says, explaining how her son often goes out to steal things to feed his habit. One day he had tried to take some power cables to sell when he got electrocuted and burned.Dimakatso Makoena blames foreigners for selling drugs to her son and destroying his life. It is not until she blames foreigners for selling the drugs that her reasoning and support for Operation Dudula becomes clear.
The xenophobic rhetoric used by some public officials, politicians and anti-migrant groups has helped fuel the myth that the country is overrun with migrants. The South African Social Attitudes Survey for 2021 found that almost half of the population of 60 million people believed there were between 17 and 40 million immigrants in the country.
"Our country is a mess. Foreign nationals are working on a 20-year plan of taking over South Africa." With no stock, he is now sleeping on the streets: "I vote in this country. I am a citizen here. I've never seen a country treating people like this. If I'm doing something illegal, fine. Deport me. But I'm not doing anything illegal. Now you make my life miserable, I can't pay my rent. I want to go, it's too much."
It is supposed to be a negotiation but quickly descends into a confrontation where one of the men, Mandla Lenkosi, threatens to beat him up. When the BBC asks them about their thuggish behaviour, they maintain they are enforcing the law. President Cyril Ramaphosa has spoken out against anti-migrant protests, and condemned vigilante groups for harassing and attacking migrants. He has likened their behaviour to strategies adopted by the apartheid regime to oppress black communities., yet campaigners want the government do more.
For her part, Ms Dabula says critics of Operation Dudula who maintain it is a collective of violent vigilantes are wrong.
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