I left my wife and twins behind - why this Nigerian man fled South Africa

Image source, BBC/Gift Ufuoma Image caption, Richard Itoro says returning to Nigeria and starting again was the better option

Nigerian Richard Itoro is not sure when he will see his twin children again.

Fearing for his safety as the anti-migrant protests cranked up in South Africa this year, the 47-year-old left his family and business behind in Johannesburg and boarded one of the voluntary repatriation flights to Nigeria in June.

His is just one of many experiences that is fuelling diplomatic tension and threatening to rupture relations between South Africa and other countries on the continent.

Tens of thousands of foreigners have left the country over the past two months.

"It was painful for me to leave [the] person who's my best friend," Itoro tells the BBC, with tears welling up, as he reflects on saying goodbye to his South African wife.

Over 15 years, he had built up a car-dealership business, bought a home and created a family. That is now all gone for him.

Itoro became the target of harassment but his wife was not spared the intimidation.

He says his neighbours told her: "You're married to a Nigerian. Those of you who are married to Nigerians we are supposed to arrest you people.

"You guys betrayed us. Go and leave the country with your husband and don't be here."

"My family was just a small family, which was beautiful and peaceful. I had no issues with anybody."

"If I go home and start all over again, it's better than being here, being harassed, being scared for my life," Itoro says.

Image source, Gallo Images via Getty Images Image caption, Marches calling for undocumented migrants to leave reached a crescendo at the end of June

But, the businessman says, the Nigerian high commission would not let his wife and children travel with him.

He describes how leaving felt like a movie where someone boards the last helicopter flight out of a besieged city.

"I wish I could have just begged the people from the embassy and said: 'This is my wife, I can't leave her behind and my kids,' but I couldn't.

"So my car started departing and I wished I had told her not to cry."

The anti-migrant groups in South Africa said their protests were aimed at undocumented foreigners. The country's outspoken Culture Minister, Gayton McKenzie, who leads one of the parties in the coalition government, also emphasised this point.

"We say South Africa is open to our brothers on the continent but come here legitimately. Come with your papers," he told the BBC's Interview programme.

But Itoro says his legal status did not protect him from hostility as he shows the BBC a copy of the document that he says proves he had the right to stay in the country.

He was not alone, according to the Nigerian authorities.

"We have records of Nigerians who have legitimate papers to remain in South Africa, yet they have been attacked," Nigeria's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sola Enikanolaiye said during a recent meeting with South Africa's Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola.

The temperature was raised last week following the death of a Nigerian who was killed as police were arresting him over suspected drug offences. An independent body is now investigating.

Lamola maintained that South Africa deals with those who take the law into their own hands, but added that President Cyril Ramaphosa was also "very firm on South Africa's sovereign right to enforce its immigration laws".

Image caption, Ghanaian Emmanuel Asamoah was working as a hairdresser in South Africa

Despite the diplomatic efforts, South Africa's reputation has been severely damaged.

Not least because of images and videos circulating on social media. Not all of them were what they were purported to be, but one, involving a Ghanaian, was genuine and it sparked huge concern once it started being shared in April.

When Emmanuel Asamoah left Ghana in 2023 for South Africa, he was chasing the kind of opportunity many migrants dream about.

The 37-year-old hairstylist settled in Soweto, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, found work, built a life and believed he had a future in one of Africa's biggest economies.

But three months ago that future suddenly felt uncertain when he was surrounded by a group of South Africans who demanded that he leave. The confrontation was captured on video.

"This thing of you guys moving from one country to another… is no longer working," one woman can be seen telling Asamoah.

"Now, we are making it very clear to you guys, we don't want you here. We want you to fix your countries."

Having returned to Ghana's capital, Accra, in May, Asamoah tells the BBC that the encounter left him terrified.

"They came to me and started pushing me... So, they started asking questions and harassing me… they said that I should go home, that we are spoiling their country, because of us, they don't eat, we are taking their girlfriends," he says.

South Africa's high jobless rate - standing at more than 30% - is seen as one of the factors fuelling the tension. It was a sentiment echoed by McKenzie.

"No man can feed another man's children while his children are starving. Our people are starving of jobs," he said backing calls for those who came to the country without papers to leave.

Image source, Gallo Images via Getty Images Image caption, As well as Ghana and Nigeria, Malawi also organised transport for its citizens to leave South Africa

But Asamoah insists he had a stamp in his passport giving him permission to stay.

"I was not illegal. I was legal in South Africa. That's why I told them that, they can take me to the police station so that we can go to Home Affairs and verify," he says.

For Asamoah, returning home has brought an unexpected fresh start.

With support from a Ghanaian businessman, he has opened a cement business and is determined to build his future.

"My brothers and sisters in South Africa. I'm in Ghana now. I'm fixing my country," he says.

But Ghana's government remains angry at the way it sees its citizens are being viewed in South Africa.

In an interview with the BBC, Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa spoke about how he saw it as going against the spirit of continental solidarity and a failure to recognise how African countries helped in the struggle against apartheid, which ended in 1994.

South Africa "should be the epitome of Pan-Africanism. We talk about African integration. We talk about free movement… even if you have issues with high immigration, is this how you resolve it?", the minister asked.

In Lagos, Itoro is still pining for his family.

"It's not easy. But we talk every day, and I'm broken. There is hope, because... my wife is going to join me very soon, as soon as God lifts me up. But it was heartbreaking, and that's how I felt: like I lost everything," he says.

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