74 ZIMBABWEANS FLEE MOSSEL BAY AFTER 3 FOREIGN NATIONALS ARE KILLED
Documented Zimbabwean Gumira narrates how it feels being attacked, losing job
By Rebecca Davis and Siyabonga Goni
Langton Gumira was a restaurant manager in Mossel Bay until he was attacked and fled to Zimbabwe in June 2026.
By May 2026, Langton Gumira liked his life — but it hadn’t always been that way.
He and his wife were two of an estimated one million Zimbabweans who had fled to South Africa in the mid-2000s.
When they arrived in 2006, Zimbabwe was in crisis: inflation over 1,000%, empty shops, no fuel or electricity, and many displaced by 2005’s Operation Murambatsvina.
“I loved my country. I loved Zimbabwe. But it was not a place we could survive,” Gumira says.
They settled in Malvern, Johannesburg. Gumira, with restaurant experience from boyhood, found work quickly and moved up. But he describes those years as hard:
“Coming from a peaceful country like Zimbabwe, where you can walk free even at 12 midnight… To come to South Africa, you know you are maybe sacrificing your life.”
The road to documentation
Many Zimbabweans entered as asylum-seekers. In 2009 SA created a special dispensation. The Documentation of Zimbabweans Project [DZP] gave Gumira a permit in 2010. He later held the Zimbabwean Special Permit and Zimbabwean Extension Permit, valid until May 2027.[2014][2017]
Then Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba said the permits were “a significant gesture of support and solidarity with our neighbouring country Zimbabwe,” based on pan-Africanism and human rights.
A quiet life in Mossel Bay
With legal status in 2010, Gumira became a restaurant manager in Mossel Bay. He and his wife lived in Giyani, KwaNonqaba township.
“For me, Mossel Bay was the most peaceful town in South Africa… I just go to work, come home, and stay indoors.”
Staff spoke of him in glowing terms. By May 2026 he was settled — until 29 May.
Mossel Bay’s night of shame
Violence erupted in late May. By the end of the weekend, hundreds fled burning shacks and at least 3 people were dead: Mozambicans Tomas Chunguane and Danilo Muainga, and South African teen Nhlamulo Sambo.[27][43]
Gumira was at work when a colleague warned him: “You must be careful because it’s not nice in the location.” He stayed in a guesthouse, then moved to a flat his boss arranged. Looters took everything from his township home: “couches, fridges, TV. We only had our clothes.”
On 30 May he left the flat for bread and was attacked by three men with knobkerries. “I thought I was the next victim… I was beaten again.” They spoke isiXhosa to each other and didn’t ask for papers. He escaped after shouting for help.
‘We have nothing’
Gumira and his wife were among 74 Zimbabweans and 300 Mozambicans who fled SA for home. They arrived in Harare on 9 June.
“We have nothing. No money, no nothing… How do you start a life in a place you’re not used to at 57 years of age?”
He’s bitter about the rhetoric in SA: “You turn on the radio… all that’s being said is ‘illegal immigrants, illegal immigrants’… and I am not even an illegal immigrant! I have my passport, I have my visa!”
“I don’t understand why our fellow black people in South Africa treat other black people like that… Zimbabweans are so peaceful; they don’t care about foreigners. Nobody attacked foreigners… South Africa is a completely different country. I’m sorry, I just don’t understand.” - Daily Maverick
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