We were crying inside the house, Xenophobia returnees narrate ordeal

When Kenya’s legendary musician David Amunga sang, “I’m going back to Kenya, that part of Africa. I’m going back to Kenya, my home of happiness,” he may not have known the weight his words would carry for many, six decades later.

Written in 1965, the timeless refrain captured the deep longing for home. Today, for Kenyans fleeing xenophobic attacks in South Africa, those lyrics echo with poignant relevance.

Almost every evening over the past week at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the song seemed to serve as a soundtrack of survival as groups of weary Kenyans stepped onto home soil, leaving behind a country where hope had gradually given way to fear.

They arrived from South Africa carrying little more than battered suitcases, shattered dreams, and stories of lives abruptly uprooted by a fresh wave of xenophobic violence targeting foreign nationals.

On Thursday evening at JKIA’s International Arrivals Terminal A, Nelly Ochieng’ emerged looking like a man who had just escaped a war zone.

The middle-aged man stepped into his homeland with only a single small backpack slung over his shoulder. Draped in a cape and wearing a cream jacket over a T-shirt, blue jeans, and the pair of shoes on his feet, these were the only possessions he had managed to bring home after 16 years of building a life in South Africa.

He did not even know how he would travel from Nairobi to his rural home in Nyakach, Kisumu County. Yet that uncertainty barely mattered.

“I am back home,” he quietly told The Sunday Standard, relief visible on his face.

His greatest comfort was knowing he was finally safe after months of living in constant fear as anti-foreigner protests escalated.

But safety had come at a devastating cost.

“I came back with nothing,” he said. “My things are still there. I left my wife there. I left my children there.”

Ochieng’ is among more than 200 Kenyans evacuated from South Africa so far, after rising hostility forced many to abandon their businesses, jobs, and homes to save their lives.

Having first travelled there in 2010 as a seaman before establishing himself as a technician, he said this wave of attacks felt worse than the violence witnessed in 2015.

“This time is worse than 2015. You live every day wondering whether you will survive.”

He blamed prolonged delays in processing immigration documents for leaving many migrants vulnerable. “They say we don’t have papers, but many of us applied and never received help. The system failed us.”

When warnings spread that foreigners would soon be forcibly removed, he abandoned everything. “I left everything behind because life is more important.” His Congolese wife remained behind, awaiting repatriation.

For Anthony Waweru from Mwea, Kirinyaga County, the losses were equally painful. Delays at South Africa’s Home Affairs offices left many migrants unable to renew their permits, effectively locking them out of bank accounts, jobs, and even their savings.

After anti-foreigner chants intensified in his neighbourhood, Waweru sought refuge elsewhere. When he returned, his house had been looted and burnt. “They broke into my house, stole everything and burnt it.”

He said foreigners lived in constant fear of violent attacks. “I have seen foreigners killed with guns and knives. They simply tell us, ‘You must leave our country.’”

Asked whether he would ever return, his answer was immediate: “No. Never!”

Twenty-three-year-old Mike Mwita from Migori had travelled to South Africa hoping to pursue further education but ended up working in a salon before finding employment at an internet café.

As hostility towards foreigners intensified, daily life became impossible.

“We were crying inside the house,” he said. “You couldn’t go anywhere. You couldn’t work. Even in taxis, they wanted you to prove who you were. The moment you spoke, they knew you were a foreigner.”

Returning to Kenya, he said, felt like freedom. “Coming back to Kenya is like breathing again. The most important thing is that I am safe.”

For Simon Chege, returning home was especially heartbreaking. After 22 years in South Africa, he left behind a bakery, a community foundation, his South African wife, and their four children.

“I had to leave my family. I left my wife, I left four kids, and here I am alone.”

He said people went from house to house threatening foreigners and seizing businesses, regardless of whether the owners were legally in the country.

“My wife is not safe because she is married to a foreigner. Even my children are not safe because they use my surname.”

Still, he insisted that most South Africans were peaceful. “South Africans are not all bad. But the bad ones need to change.”

Mohamed Gedi, who had worked as a forklift driver for about a year, said the attacks shattered his hopes of building a future there.

“I will not go back. If the Kenyan government gives us jobs, we will be grateful — that is why we went there in the first place.”

Pastor Martin Oduor, who ministered to migrant communities in South Africa for 17 years, described an atmosphere of fear and corruption. “Your life is in your hands. You can be killed simply because you are a foreign national.”

He alleged that some migrants had paid for immigration documents only to discover they were fake. “When they see you working, they say you’re taking their jobs. When they see you eating, they say you’re eating their food.”

Despite leaving two daughters behind, he hopes relations between migrants and locals will improve. “The hatred must stop. We are sisters and brothers. We are all children of God.”

Kenya Diaspora chairman in South Africa, Benard Maina, said anti-foreigner sentiment had spread into everyday life, affecting even children.

“The message that ‘you are a foreigner’ has become very strong,” he said, recounting the story of a Congolese pastor whose 10-year-old child was asked when they would “go back home.”

Maina urged Kenya and South Africa to engage diplomatically, noting that many migrants had applied to renew their documents but were trapped by administrative delays beyond their control.

Standing at JKIA, the returnees had arrived without savings, without certainty, and — for many — without the families they left behind.

Yet after months of fear, uncertainty, and relentless anxiety, one thing mattered above everything else: “I am home. I am safe.”

This comes even as government-led repatriation flights are expected to end on July 19.

“In light of this, Kenyans in South Africa are advised that the evacuation exercise will conclude on Thursday, July 9, with the final repatriation flight scheduled to depart from Johannesburg on this day,” the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs said on Friday.