Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Accra (Fides News Agency) – “Ghanaians will continue to live in South Africa and South Africans will also continue to live in Ghana. Ghanaians have businesses there and South Africans also have businesses here. Let us live in unity and love,” said Bishop Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi of Sunyani, President of the Bishops’ Conference of Ghana, in a statement to local media. He was addressing the xenophobic tensions in South Africa, which are affecting Ghanaian immigrants, among others. Several citizens of African countries have already been repatriated to escape xenophobic violence. In response to the intolerance towards foreigners in South Africa, hostility towards South Africans is spreading in the countries of origin of those expelled.
Msgr. Gyamfi warns that this attitude should be seen as the work of a minority and not of all South Africans. “I believe that Ghanaians who have been repatriated, and indeed all Africans should see this as a misunderstanding by some people in South Africa and should not react by repatriating South Africans back.” The president of the Ghanaian Bishops’ Conference warns: “Once you begin that, it will have a snowball effect all over Africa. We just want everybody to keep calm,” Archbishop Gyamfi urges.
The president of the Ghanaian Bishops’ Conference also points to the precedent of reciprocal expulsions between Nigeria and Ghana. “Ghana once made the mistake of asking Nigerians to go back home and later Nigerians also repatriated Ghanaians,” he recalls. “I do not think the two countries will ever repeat those mistakes again, because they have learnt their lesson now,” Bishop Gyamfi concludes. The Bishop of Sunyani was referring to two different events. The first dates back to 1969, when Ghana issued an order requiring foreigners without valid documents to leave the country within 14 days. Nigerian citizens were primarily affected. The second incident occurred in 1983, when Nigeria deported at least two million undocumented foreigners, including approximately one million Ghanaians.
Xenophobic violence against migrants from Asia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other countries, as well as against Africans from neighboring countries such as Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and even from more distant countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Somalia, is a recurring problem in South Africa. It is fueled by high unemployment and economic inequality. Migrants are accused of stealing jobs, committing crimes, or overloading social services. The violence includes acts of summary justice,
looting, and assaults, particularly in regions such as Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
Recent incidents in 2026 demanding the expulsion of undocumented migrants turned violent, resulting in deaths and injuries, and the repatriation of several foreigners. While not all South Africans share this view, it is a recurring problem. Both the South African Catholic Bishops' Conference (see Fides, 21/5/2026) and the Symposium of Bishops' Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) have strongly condemned xenophobic violence. (L.M.) (Fides News Agency, 2/6/2026)
