'They can kill you': Immigrants fear a surge in xenophobic violence in South Africa

South Africans dressed in traditional attire protest against illegal migration on April 29 in Johannesburg. Themba Hadebe/AP hide caption toggle caption Themba Hadebe/AP Johannesburg has always been a melting pot. Traverse South Africa's economic capital and you'll come across Zimbabweans trained as doctors but driving Ubers, Ethiopians running bustling restaurants, and Congolese selling colorful wax print fabrics. Some of these immigrants have lived here for years. Others have recently arrived, seeking a better life in one of the continent's richest and most stable democracies. Some are here legally, others not. But all of them are now under threat — not just in Johannesburg but across the country, from Durban to Cape Town — as South Africa is engulfed by a rising tide of xenophobia. For months now, mobs of anti-immigrant protesters, many brandishing sticks, have been marching through the streets chanting "Mabahambe" — a Zulu phrase meaning "They must go." Some of them claim to perform "arrests" and say they have the right to check immigration papers, although they have no legal authority to do so. Foreign-owned businesses have been attacked, people chased from their homes, and several migrants have been killed. In Durban, it's a tinder keg, and thousands of Malawians who have fled their homes to escape the violence have camped out in the open, in winter, begging their country to send buses to rescue them. …