“Abahambe” as a Challenge to Ubuntu and Pan-African Solidarity: Afrophobia and the Exploitation of African Migrants in South Africa

Abahambe (“they must go”) is an isiZulu and isiXhosa expression prominent in South African political and protest discourse calling for undocumented immigrants to leave the country. Although proponents associate the slogan with concerns about unemployment, healthcare, crime, and competition for resources, its use raises broader questions about Afrophobia, belonging, violence, and the exploitation of African migrants. This article examines the rationale and implications of Abahambe within the broader context of transnational migration in South Africa. Drawing on a qualitative literature review and content analysis of relevant media and social media discourse, it examines how the slogan is constructed and used in contemporary migration debates. The analysis is informed by Pan-Africanism, Ubuntu, and biblical models of solidarity with strangers and foreign nationals. The article argues that, although the socio-economic concerns surrounding migration warrant attention, exclusionary uses of Abahambe risk reinforcing Afrophobic attitudes, legitimising hostility towards African migrants and obscuring broader structural causes of poverty, unemployment and inequality. In response, it advances a Pan-Africanist framework grounded in Ubuntu and solidarity that emphasises shared humanity and African interconnectedness while acknowledging host communities’ concerns. This framework offers an alternative for examining migration, belonging and socioeconomic tensions without endorsing exclusion or hostility towards fellow Africans.