By Abdul-Mumin Sofo Yumzaa
Executive Director, Simba Ghana
The images are still fresh. Ghanaians descending the stairs of a chartered flight at Kotoka International Airport, clutching bags and children, some with bandages, others with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Victor Atsu, shot and still carrying a bullet in his spine. Ms. Akuffo, attacked with sharp weapons in a Johannesburg salon. A barber abandoned his 40‑foot container shop after two break‑in. By May 2026, 297 Ghanaians were evacuated from South Africa, the first batch of over 800 who registered for help.
In the face of beatings, harassment, and viral videos of our people being told to go back and fix their country, the Government of Ghana acted. Foreign Affairs Minister, Honourable Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa summoned South Africa’s envoy. Our High Commissioner in South Africa, Benjamin Quashie, coordinated evacuations. Medical care, psychosocial support, and reintegration allowances were arranged for returnees.
https://simbaghana.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IAA-SAGS-SCHOOLS-MONITORING-REPORT_KARAGA-1.pdf
When citizens are hunted by mobs, chased from workplaces, and shot at, diplomacy cannot move at the speed of communiqués. It must move at the speed of rescue. The evacuation was not panic. It was protection. Any government that watches its people brutalized abroad and chooses paperwork over plane tickets has forgotten the first duty of a state: to keep its people alive. Kudos to the government!
Yet protection cannot be the end of the story. Ghana is not just another country. We are the Black Star of Africa. The first to break colonial chains. The birthplace of Pan-Africanism. The Gateway to Africa for the diaspora. Torchbearers do not only shield their own from flames; they light a path so the fire stops.
SO WHAT COMES AFTER THE EVACUATION?
1. Institutionalize accountability, not just apologies: South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and Foreign Affairs Minister Ronald Lamola condemned the attacks and pledged arrests. Condemnation is necessary. Prosecution is permanent. Ghana should push, through the African Union and bilaterally, for a transparent docket on every reported attack against Ghanaians. Names, arrests, sentences. Impunity is the oxygen of xenophobia. Cut it off.
2. Treat xenophobia as a continental crisis, not a bilateral quarrel: Kenya, Malawi, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Mozambique all warned or repatriated citizens in the same wave. This is not South Africa’s problem; It is Africa’s shame. Ghana should table an AU Protocol on the Prevention and Punishment of Xenophobic Violence: binding standards, peer-review mechanisms, and sanctions for states that fail to protect migrants. We led the AU reform agenda. We can lead this one.
3. Link migration to economics, not just sentiment: Migrant-rights groups say foreigners are scapegoated for 30% plus unemployment in South Africa. The real fix is jobs. Ghana, through AfCFTA headquartered in Accra, should drive a Mobility with Dignity pact: harmonized work permits for Africans, skills-matching databases, and joint SME corridors. When a Ghanaian barber or Nigerian trader is seen as filling a gap, not taking a job, the mob loses its lie.
4. Use culture and memory as armor: The same Ghana that invited the world home for the Year of Return must now teach the continent that “return” is not tourism alone. It is a doctrine: African to African, you are not a foreigner. Deploy our cultural power, music, film, history, to normalize intra-African belonging.
5. Create a Rapid Response Compact for Citizens Abroad: Evacuation should not be ad‑hoc. ECOWAS needs a standing fund and airlift protocol for citizens in distress, triggered by clear thresholds. Ghana can seed it. We’ve shown we can move 300 people in days. Let’s make sure the 54 nations can move 3,000 if tomorrow demands it.
Ghana’s gateway must stay open-both ways: Diplomacy got some of our people home. But diplomacy alone will not keep the next Victor Atsu from being shot. Only a continent-wide architecture that punishes hate, rewards mobility, and tells a new story of African brotherhood will.
Ghana evacuated because lives matter. Ghana must now legislate, organize, and agitate because the idea of Africa matters too. We were the first to lift the torch. Let us be the first to ensure no African ever needs to flee another African country again.
Not in South Africa. Not anywhere.
And it starts now!!!
Executive Director
Email: ar.mumin@simbaghana.org
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