Shot dead in a township: how extortion and xenophobia leave Somali shopkeepers exposed in South Africa
Late on a Thursday in Booysenpark, a low-rise neighbourhood of Port Elizabeth, the staccato of gunfire ended the life of a shopkeeper who had been trying, like many migrants, to make a modest living in South Africa. Sharmaarke Aadan Mohamed was killed inside his spaza shop — one more body on a long list of Somali traders who say they live under the constant threat of violence, robbery and organized extortion.
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The killing and its echoes
Witnesses say armed men burst into the small store, opened fire, and disappeared into the streets before police arrived. Authorities in Nelson Mandela Bay confirmed an investigation but reported no arrests and have not publicly stated a motive. For Somali traders across the country, the lack of immediate answers is all too familiar.
“We live with a target on our backs,” said a shopkeeper in Cape Town who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. “You pay what they want, or you hide. You refuse, and sometimes you pay with your life.”
Not an isolated incident
Mohamed’s death is part of a pattern that has persisted for years. Community leaders in Cape Town have cited figures suggesting more than 1,500 Somali traders have been killed in South Africa over the past two decades. Reporting and human rights groups document a steady stream of attacks, many linked to gangs that demand monthly “protection” payments from small-shop owners, often migrants with limited options.
A 2024 investigation by GroundUp quoted an extortionist who boasted that Somali and Pakistani shopkeepers were forced to pay up to 2,000 rand — roughly $105 — a month to avoid attacks. In August 2024, threats circulated in Philippi, a Cape Town township, shutting schools and businesses after messages allegedly promised to “kill every Somalian” who refused to comply.
Why Somali traders?
Somali migrants have long filled the niche of small retail in South African townships and suburbs — the ubiquitous spaza shops selling groceries, airtime and daily essentials. Many arrived decades ago, building communities and weaving themselves into local economies. But their visibility and relative success also make them targets.
- High visibility: Small shops operate in public spaces and handle cash, making them lucrative targets for thieves and extortionists.
- Vulnerability: Many Somali traders lack permanent residency or face language and legal barriers that make seeking protection difficult.
- Criminal economics: Gangs see predictable revenue streams in rent-seeking extortion; violence enforces compliance.
- Social scapegoating: Economic anxiety and competition fuel xenophobic narratives that cast migrants as easy villains.
State responses and gaps
Authorities in the Western Cape responded to earlier waves of extortion by creating an Extortion Task Team meant to break up syndicates targeting migrant-owned businesses. Yet traders and community advocates say the measures have not halted the routine brutality they face. Investigations can sputter, witnesses are intimidated, and few perpetrators are brought to justice.
“We need visible policing that protects victims, not just statements after bodies are found,” said a Cape Town-based community organiser. “When a trader is killed, it sends a message to the whole community: you are disposable.”
That sense of disposability is not just local. South Africa has grappled with recurrent xenophobic violence for nearly two decades — large waves in 2008, 2015 and again in subsequent years — each episode exposing the fragile intersection of poverty, unemployment and the politics of exclusion. When local grievances meet organized criminality, migrants often bear the brunt.
Wider trends — and global parallels
The targeting of Somali traders in South Africa sits at the junction of several global trends: the commodification of migrant labour, the rise of predatory local criminal networks, and the weaponization of xenophobia by those seeking easy explanations for structural economic problems. Elsewhere, from Europe to the United States, migrants and foreign-born shopkeepers have also been scapegoated during periods of economic stress and political populism.
But the South African case is compounded by the scale of informal economies and a policing system strained by crime and budgetary limits. The result: a permissive environment where extortion can become institutionalised and violence can spiral without effective deterrence.
What must change?
There are no simple fixes. Effective response requires a combination of targeted law enforcement against criminal syndicates, legal and social protections for migrants, and community-level interventions that reduce the incentive and opportunity for violence. It also requires political leadership to counter xenophobic rhetoric and to frame migrant communities not as competitors for scarce resources but as contributors to neighbourhood resilience.
For shopkeepers like Mohamed, who ran a shop in a neighbourhood that knows both struggle and solidarity, such grand solutions do little to soothe the immediate absence felt by family and customers. “We come to work early, we lock the door at night, but fear comes anyway,” the unnamed shopkeeper said. “What do you tell your children? That you did everything and still it wasn’t enough?”
Questions for readers and policymakers
As South Africa and other nations wrestle with crime, migration and economic fracture, this killing begs questions with global resonance: How should states protect vulnerable migrant entrepreneurs who fill essential gaps in informal economies? What steps will break the profitability of extortion rings? And how can communities and leaders replace scapegoating with strategies that build inclusive security?
The answers demand policy imagination and political will. Absent that, the slow arithmetic of violence will continue to add names to a ledger that those on the margins already read like instruction — keep your head down, pay when asked, and pray you are spared.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
