Former President Kgalema Motlanthe says current hostility towards migrants in South Africa ignores the region’s shared history.
Motlanthe was speaking at his foundation’s winter seminar in Sandton on Thursday.
He highlighted that migration has been central to southern Africa‘s economic development for generations, adding that labour migration helped build industries across the region.
Motlanthe’s sentiments come weeks after civil group March and March staged marches countrywide against illegal immigration in the country.
“The contemporary anxiety about foreign migrants from the region is therefore historically ironic because those migrants or their forebears built the economy that now debates their admission.”
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