One of South Africa’s most prominent anti-immigration protest figures Ngizwe Mchunu has publicly called for an end to the demonstrations he helped ignite as the movement fractures from within, one of its regional leaders lies dead, and more than 53,000 African migrants have already been deported or repatriated in the space of a month.
The anti-immigration movement that has convulsed South Africa for months is showing its first significant signs of internal collapse, with prominent activist and former radio personality Ngizwe Mchunu publicly breaking from the March and March movement and calling for an end to protests a development that arrives days after the movement announced the killing of one of its own regional leaders.
Mchunu, a former Ukhozi FM presenter who became one of the most visible faces of the campaign against undocumented migrants in South Africa, announced this week that he no longer wishes to participate in the protests and urged fellow activists to let the government do its job. The decision puts him on a collision course with the movement’s remaining leadership and has drawn sharp backlash from within the organisation he once championed.
Mchunu cited the economic consequences of indefinitely sustained demonstrations as his primary reason for stepping back, saying that continuous protests risked harming South Africa’s economy. “We can’t protest every day our objectives have never been to collapse the economy,” he said in remarks that circulated widely on social media.
He argued that the June 30 marches, which took place across the country and were among the largest in the movement’s history, had already achieved meaningful results, and that there was no justification for the movement to continue at the same intensity. “We are very happy because our actions have started to yield results,” he said. “While there are things we couldn’t achieve, the June 30 protests did yield some results.”
Mchunu also called on other prominent figures within the movement including March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma and social media personality Nkosikhona “Phakelumthakathi” Ndabandaba to follow his lead and step back from the weekly protest cycle.
Mchunu’s position did not emerge in a vacuum. The March and March movement suspended its working relationship with him after its leadership allegedly uncovered evidence of attempts to weaken the organisation describing the situation as “an offer and acceptance of gratification in exchange for the soul of the Movement.”
The context for that suspension is significant. On the eve of the June 30 anti-immigration protests, Mchunu and Ndabandaba held a meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa a meeting conducted without March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, which the movement’s leadership viewed as a serious breach of internal protocol.
March and March spokesperson Sandile Dube was direct in his response to Mchunu’s public call to end the protests, lambasting him and clarifying that Mchunu was not a founder nor a leader of March and March, but a former ally through his own organisation, Amabhinca Nation. Mchunu, for his part, dismissed the criticism. “They are juniors,” he said of the March and March leadership in remarks published by Times Live.
In May, Mchunu’s home in Durban was torched by unknown individuals who came looking for him he was not present at the time of the attack. The incident underscored the personal dangers that have accompanied the protest movement for those at its centre.
The internal fracture comes against the backdrop of a death that stunned the movement and hardened the resolve of those who remain in it. Andile Somgxada, who led March and March in Gauteng’s Ekurhuleni area, was shot while leaving his home on 4 July 2026 and died in hospital the following Thursday from his wounds.
The movement described the killing as an assassination, with its spokesperson confirming that March and March leaders across the country had been receiving death threats over their stance on illegal immigration. “March and March has been receiving death threats in this case of our leader in Ekurhuleni,” Dube said. “We confirm that there’s a number of death threats that we are receiving throughout South Africa for wanting what’s best for South Africans.”
Following Somgxada’s death, the movement vowed to intensify its Thursday marches, particularly in Gauteng, where it said resistance to its activities was strongest.
The movement’s protests have coincided with one of the largest migration enforcement operations South Africa has undertaken in years. South Africa has deported or repatriated more than 53,000 African immigrants in a single month, with more than 80% of those sent home being from Malawi, according to Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi. Immigrants from Zimbabwe and Mozambique made up the bulk of the remainder, alongside nationals from Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya.
Nigeria, Ghana, and Mozambique have said some of their nationals were killed during the protests, although South African officials have rejected attempts to link those deaths directly to the anti-immigration demonstrations.
A survey by Afrobarometer found that seven out of ten South Africans view the economic impact of immigrants negatively a statistic that reflects the political soil in which the March and March movement grew and that suggests the underlying sentiment will not dissolve simply because one of its figureheads steps back.
Mchunu’s departure from active protest leadership is significant but not necessarily decisive. The March and March movement has made clear it does not consider him its founder or core leader, and Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma remains in place. The weekly Thursday marches are continuing.
What Mchunu’s public reversal does signal is a fracture at the top of a movement that has, in a matter of months, driven mass deportations, triggered diplomatic protests from multiple African governments, cost South African musicians their international bookings, and left at least one of its own leaders dead.
For the millions of African migrants living in South Africa among them Sierra Leoneans, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Zimbabweans, and others the question of whether the movement’s momentum will slow meaningfully is not abstract. It is immediate and daily.
Mchunu’s call for the government to be allowed to do its job represents, at minimum, an acknowledgement that the line between a protest movement and something more dangerous is easier to cross than it is to step back from.
