Scared but staying: Some migrants dig in as South Africa turns hostile

DURBAN, South Africa, July 2 - Ethiopian refugee Helana Wolde locked his home and watched on television as thousands of angry demonstrators marched through South Africa this week calling for foreigners like him to leave.

His wife and their three South African-born children were terrified, he said in the shop in downtown Durban where he sells coffee and lentils.

But after leaving Ethiopia 21 years ago to escape political persecution, he does not see going back as an option.

While thousands of immigrants packed up and left South Africa ahead of the June 30 protests, many more feel their best option is to stay, even though the country has turned hostile.

"I have no place, no property, no family" in Ethiopia, said Wolde, adding his brothers there had been jailed. He reopened his shop, which unlike others wasn't looted, the morning after the protest and was hoping for the best.

Although Tuesday's nationwide marches were largely peaceful, there were several pockets of attacks on foreigners and looting of migrant-owned businesses.

"We're all extra-scared," Wolde said.

PROTESTERS BLAME IMMIGRANTS FOR ECONOMIC WOES

South Africa hosts over 167,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, according to the United Nations, a small number compared to many African countries -- Uganda has 1.8 million, according to the U.N. refugee agency; Chad has 1.2 million; Kenya, 850,000.

The overall immigrant population in South Africa stands at about 3 million, or 4% of the total, low by global standards.

The main group behind the protests, March and March, says it only objects to illegal immigration and is not xenophobic.

But the vigilantes it has riled up often target foreigners indiscriminately, and their frequent demands that immigrants show their documents are themselves illegal -- as the government has pointed out in several statements -- as only police have the authority to ask for them.

Several South African protesters said that what really bothered them was seeing foreign-owned shops on their streets, while they were struggling to make a living.

"This economy belongs to our people and it has been hijacked," the group's leader, Jacinta Ngobese, a former radio presenter, said in a speech on Tuesday.

She has called for marches every Thursday until its demands -- including mass deportation -- are met.

A third of South Africans are unemployed and frustration with overstretched public services and rampant crime has boiled over, although researchers say that immigration is not to blame for these problems.

"Foreigners are not taking jobs from South Africans. We are starting some small jobs here in South Africa. We are paying rent," said Daniel Abide, 33, whose small convenience store in Clermont, a township near Durban, was looted on Tuesday night.

"If you want to open a shop, you must open a shop like us," he said.

BUSINESS DOWN FOR FOREIGN SHOP OWNERS

Abide came from Ethiopia a decade ago and has two shops, one of which was not targeted. He hopes to eventually re-open the other one, which was broken into and emptied out by looters. He employs one South African in his small business.

Other shops that were looted in Clermont were run by people from Somalia and Pakistan, locals told Reuters.

Outside one, men were working to fix the broken doors before nightfall, when they were afraid looters might come back.

Wolde keeps a laminated stack of documents -- his refugee certificate, tax and bank statements -- on hand to show anyone who questions his legal status.

Sometimes he has to show them two or three times a day to police or other people who come into his shop, which is on a bustling street with mostly Ethiopian businesses.

"Now business is no good," Wolde said. "Everybody is scared to come here."

He has soured on South Africa. But having already survived a shooting in 2008, and xenophobic looting in 2015 and 2021, he plans to stick it out anyway.

"I make business here. I don't know why they're angry." REUTERS