Amid rising hostility towards international migrants, anti-migrant protests have spread across South Africa in 2026. Some have involved intimidation, the denial of access to public services and fatal violence.
False information has flourished in this climate, and Africa Check has been tracking it live.
After more than a decade of fact-checking claims about migration, we’ve seen the same broad narratives return in different forms. They shape public debate, deepen social divisions and reduce South Africa’s complex problems to simple explanations.
South Africa does face real migration challenges, including weak border management, asylum backlogs and poor enforcement of labour and business laws.
But they do not prove the narratives examined in this explainer: that migrants are present in vastly greater numbers than official estimates show, dominate the economy or are chiefly responsible for crime and failing public services.
| Narrative: Tens of millions of migrants live in South Africa but aren’t counted in official statistics because they are undocumented. What the evidence shows: This narrative relies on uncertain or false information that inflates the number of migrants in South Africa, legally or otherwise. The figures may vary, but by international standards migrants do not make up an unusually large share of South Africa’s population. This does not rule out higher migrant concentration in cities such as Johannesburg. |
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