With anti-migrant sentiment escalating in South Africa (SA), Malawian John ​Allen threw some clothes in a bag, said goodbye to his SA girlfriend and their ‌one-year-old son, and left to catch a bus out of the country.

He has now been waiting in a makeshift camp in the city of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal Province for four days with thousands of other people hoping to depart before June 30, an unofficial deadline set by anti-immigrant groups for all ​undocumented foreigners to leave.

Although the government has not condoned the deadline and condemns the violence, it has been ​criticized by other African states and civil society groups for failing to stamp it out.

“The ⁠reason I would like to stay is I feel bad for my child. He’s too young. When I’m gone who’s ​going to support him?” said Allen, 30.

The child’s mother, who is South African, only earns about $30 (R500) a week ​as a cleaner, but Allen had been earning four times that doing contract work for a manufacturing company, although he was undocumented.

As anti-immigrant protests surged in recent weeks some of the foreigners in his neighbourhood were beaten up, he said, and now almost everyone has left.

“There’s ​two options, I can lose my life or I can leave,” he told Reuters, standing with other men amid piles ​of luggage, waiting for a bus.

–Reuters–