When the first evacuation flight from Johannesburg touched down at Kotoka International Airport on Wednesday afternoon, among the 300 Ghanaians stepping onto the tarmac were 26 citizens who had been pulled directly from South African prisons .
They walked into the arms of a nation that had chartered a Boeing 787 Dreamliner to bring them home, offered immediate financial reintegration packages, and deployed psychologists to help them heal from the trauma of weeks spent running from door-to-door threats in a country that was supposed to be a brotherly nation .
The dramatic repatriation, which will see more than 800 Ghanaians voluntarily leave South Africa following a wave of anti-immigrant violence, has exposed a stark continental contradiction .
For nestled quietly in Ghana’s vibrant highlife scene lives a story that offers a mirror to the turmoil unfolding 4,000 kilometers south.
The Gospel of Acceptance
Adina Thembi Ndamse is one of Ghana’s most beloved musical treasures. Winner of “Record of the Year” and “Best Female Vocalist” at the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards, her voice has become synonymous with the soul of modern Ghanaian music .
But Adina Thembi Ndamse is South African.
Born in Liberia to a South African father, Dr. Richard Sekumbuzo Ndamse, who had fled apartheid, and a Ghanaian mother, she arrived in Ghana as an infant—not with a passport and a visa, but as a baby fleeing for her life .
“I was born in October; the war broke out a month or two later,” Adina once recalled, speaking of the Liberian civil war that tore her family apart .
When rebels threatened to “blast” their neighborhood, her mother fled with her in the middle of the night. Her father, a doctor trapped in a different region, was lost to the chaos. Years later, as a teenager, Adina would discover via an internet cafe search that her father had died without her ever seeing him again .
She grew up in Ghana. She attended Wesley Girls High School and Central University in Accra. She sang in church choirs. And today, millions of Ghanaians love her without a single thought for her father’s homeland .
“Culture is part of our music,” Adina has said, explaining how she blends her heritage .
In Ghana, that fusion is celebrated. She lives peacefully with her family, indistinguishable from any other citizen, because Ghana has historically chosen the embrace of Pan-Africanism over the bitterness of xenophobia.
The Lion’s Den
The contrast with the treatment of Ghanaians in South Africa could not be starker.
Over the past several weeks, foreign nationals in South Africa have faced what returnees describe as targeted harassment. A viral video showing the alleged assault of a Ghanaian man triggered outrage across West Africa. In Durban, locals went door-to-door telling migrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Somalia to leave by a June 30 deadline .
“It has never been easy for us in South Africa over the past few weeks,” Victor Atsu Togbe, one of the returnees, told reporters upon landing in Accra. “We want to thank the Ghanaian government for taking us out of the lion’s den” .
While South Africa struggles with an unemployment rate exceeding 30 percent, its government and citizens have frequently scapegoated the roughly 3 million foreigners living within its borders—5.1 percent of the population .
Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, who personally greeted the returnees, did not hide his frustration.
“If you mess around with Ghanaians anywhere in the world, thinking that they are orphaned or nobody cares about them, you are mistaken,” Ablakwa said on the tarmac. “And you are making a mess of yourself” .
A Diplomatic Earthquake
The repatriation has become more than a rescue mission; it is a diplomatic rebuke. Ghana has formally petitioned the African Union to place xenophobic attacks in South Africa on the agenda of the AU Mid-Year Coordination Meeting .
The message is clear: How can the continent champion the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the free movement of people when South African streets are unsafe for African bodies?
Even in the midst of the crisis, Ablakwa revealed that Ghana negotiated directly with South African authorities to ensure no citizen was left behind.
“We negotiated with the South African government that since we are evacuating our nationals, we don’t want to leave anybody behind in prison,” he said .
The South Africans agreed. The 26 detainees—held mostly for visa violations—were released and put on the plane .
“So now, there is no Ghanaian in any South African prison for visa violations. We have brought all of them back home,” Ablakwa declared.
The Unanswered Question
As the evacuees receive their reintegration packages—transportation allowances, temporary accommodation support, and counseling—the question floating over the Kotoka runway is one of reciprocity .
Adina Thembi Ndamse, the “Ghanaian” singer with South African blood, has built a career and a life in Ghana. She was not asked for her father’s documents when she sought refuge. She did not face door-to-door intimidation.
Ghana will never do this to fellow Africans, the government’s actions imply. The invitation to foreign nationals is written into the rhythm of the highlife—welcoming, hybrid, and unafraid.
But as 800 citizens flee the economic powerhouse of the continent, forced to abandon their jobs and dreams because their hosts turned on them, the dream of a unified Africa feels, for a moment, terribly fragile.
They came home to Eid al-Adha, as the Foreign Minister promised—to a country that prioritizes its citizens’ dignity and welcomes strangers with open arms .
One can only wonder: If the tables were turned, would South Africa do the same for Ghanaians? Or for anyone?
