They Treated Us Like Sl∆ves, Kill€d My Husband’ — Nigerian Returnee Recounts Ordeal In South Africa’s Xen0phobic ∆ttacks

‘They Treated Us Like Slaves, Killed My Husband’ — Nigerian Returnee Recounts Ordeal In South Africa’s Xenophobic Attacks

According to her, Nigerians and other African migrants in South Africa often faced intimidation, harassment and physical attacks.

One of the Nigerians evacuated from South Africa amid renewed xenophobic attacks has recounted harrowing experiences of abuse, discrimination and fear, describing how Nigerians were allegedly treated “like slaves” and subjected to violence in the country.

The returnee, identified as Emilia Godwin, spoke emotionally after arriving in Nigeria on Thursday aboard the Air Peace evacuation flight arranged by the Federal Government for Nigerians seeking to escape the latest wave of anti-foreigner hostility in South Africa.

In an interview with TheCable, Godwin said she had lived in South Africa since 2014 but had long desired to return home because of what she described as persistent discrimination and hostility towards Nigerians.

“I am still saying it now that I am in my country and I have my mouth to speak — they are wicked. They don’t like us,” she said.

According to her, Nigerians and other African migrants in South Africa often faced intimidation, harassment and physical attacks.

“If you enter a taxi, they make jest of you, they pull you, they beat you. We are just like slaves there. We don’t have a mouth to talk. If you talk too much, they start hitting you and speaking their language,” she alleged.

Godwin said she had no intention of ever returning to South Africa despite spending over a decade there and raising a child born in the country.

“I will never go to South Africa anymore. Even though my child was born there, she will never go to South Africa anymore,” she declared.

Godwin, who migrated to South Africa in 2014, revealed that signs of deadly xenophobia had become structural over the last three years, but she lacked the financial means or opportunity to escape the country until the Nigerian Federal Government’s emergency intervention.

She opened a dark window into how Nigerian men are allegedly targeted, seduced, and systematically eliminated by local women looking to hijack their wealth and hard-earned assets.

“I am 45 years old. I have only one child. When I got to South Africa, those local women didn’t want me; they did everything to ensure my husband never came close to me to give me another child. That country is full of ‘Muti’, which is Juju. They use love potions heavily. South Africa is number one when it comes to love potions; they use it properly to take your man away from you.

“Iwill never return to South Africa. They killed my husband. They are very wicked people.” — repatriated Nigerian woman shares her experience pic.twitter.com/qbX91zAHLA

— TheCable (@thecableng) June 11, 2026

“All the Nigerian men who have children with South African women are lost. Their children are lost; they can never come back home to Nigeria with a South African woman. They are trapped there, even though they bear Nigerian names,” she warned.

Godwin explained that escaping the country with her only daughter was a near-impossible feat, as South African immigration officials at the Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg intentionally created bureaucratic bottlenecks to frustrate her departure and hold back her child.

“It was only by God’s grace that I managed to return with my daughter. The way the immigration officials were interviewing and profiling me was terrible. They demanded to know where her father was. I told them her father was dead and that I am the biological mother. Everything was explicitly stated in the documentation, but they still delayed us. It took the direct intervention of my brother working at the Nigerian Embassy in Johannesburg to make it possible for me to board that flight back home,” she stated.

Her testimony came as the first batch of Nigerians evacuated from South Africa arrived in Lagos on Thursday following a Federal Government-backed operation.