Mozambique has dispatched a Labour Ministry delegation to South Africa to assess the safety and rights of Mozambican workers following a surge in xenophobic attacks and anti‑migrant protests targeting Africans in several South African cities.
The move comes amid growing concern in Maputo over the security of more than 300,000 Mozambicans living and working in South Africa.
The National Director of Migrant Labour, Alice Brito said the delegation would meet South African authorities to evaluate conditions on the ground and identify measures to protect Mozambican workers’ labour and social rights.
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“The government is prepared to provide all assistance to our workers,” Brito told Radio Mozambique.
She said “visit is intended to reassure workers that the government is actively monitoring the situation and coordinating with consular services and labour administration offices“.
The deployment follows weeks of unrest in South Africa where groups of residents have staged demonstrations demanding the removal of foreign nationals, particularly undocumented migrants.
The protests have been accompanied by harassment, looting and sporadic violence in informal settlements, prompting heightened alert levels among regional governments and international organisations.
Brito warned that misleading videos circulating on social media have fuelled fear among migrant communities, stressing that some of the content “had nothing to do with Mozambicans, nor with the situation in the vicinity of South Africa.”
AP
