More than 20,000 people marched through Johannesburg in South Africa on Saturday to celebrate Gay Pride, singing, dancing and making their support clear for LGBTQ+ communities across Africa who cannot be open safely and whose relationships are criminalised.

At the front of a parade that organisers estimated was 24,000-strong was Mandela Swali, a 25-year-old Ugandan gay man who was attending his first Pride, having been in South Africa just a month-and-a-half.

Swali, face coated in glitter, draped in a Ugandan flag, recounted how he had fled his country in 2021 while on bail, having been arrested when his landlady caught him having sex with his boyfriend.

"This is the space and this is the family I deserve to have right now. I feel like I'm at home," Swali said, after the 6 km march through some of Johannesburg's wealthiest neighbourhoods beneath purple flowering jacaranda trees.

Uganda introduced one of the world's harshest anti-gay laws in May, including the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality". Same-sex relations were already illegal in Uganda, as they are in more than 30 African countries.

South Africa, in contrast, made same sex marriage legal in 2006 and is still the only African country to have done so.

"Our intention today is to march for Uganda ... for LGBT communities in Africa that can't march for themselves," said Johannesburg Pride organise Kaye Ally.

Last year's Pride, the city's first since the COVID-19 pandemic, was subdued after the U.S. warned of a possible terrorist attack beforehand. That only increased the LGBTQ+ community's desire for this year's event, held 34 years after the first, said Ally.

"This year we're going full force," she said. "That hunger for Pride, as well as all the happenings in Africa, has really amplified the need for us to take to the streets and to come out in all our flamboyancy and assert our authenticity."

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Xenophobia Republic...


I can never forget what these niggars did to our brothers making a living in SA.

RUBBISH.

🥴

Ozommadu:
Xenophobia Republic...


I can never forget what these niggars did to our brothers making a living in SA.

We also won't forget the chaos you've been causing ever since we opened the gates for you! the drug and human trafficking, the ritualism you've brought into our country, the prostitutings and the scamming. You have the worst reputation of Africans living in SA, you and Zimbos and that's all on you

ONEjoblessGUY:
Stewpid.......
xenophobic black ass slaves forming woke.......

Focus on your ritualisim and barbarism and leave SA alone

KingCold:
We also won't forget the chaos you've been causing ever since we opened the gates for you! the drug and human trafficking, the ritualism you've brought into our country, the prostitutings and the scamming. You have the worst reputation of Africans living in SA, you and Zimbos and that's all on you

Is xenophobia the only way you handle civil matters??

When you zulus were raiding people's shop and properties that year, what did those ones do to you?

Ozommadu:


Is xenophobia the only way you handle civil matters??

When you zulus were raiding people's shop and properties that year, what did those ones do to you?

Who told you that was the case?

And who told you I was Zulu?

Most people are sheep...

KingCold:
Who told you that was the case?

And who told you I was Zulu?

Aren't you from xenophobia Republic

For the sake of their lives they should go live in a country where gay right is upheld.

Try this fr Nigeria and u go collect

Ozommadu:


Aren't you from xenophobia Republic

I would be if you weren't from that 5th world planet of the apes slum

Nah only gay post this guy sabi. Tufiakwa

KingCold:
We also won't forget the chaos you've been causing ever since we opened the gates for you! the drug and human trafficking, the ritualism you've brought into our country, the prostitutings and the scamming. You have the worst reputation of Africans living in SA, you and Zimbos and that's all on you

Ouch, go slow now.

The homophobes🇳🇬 are hurt by xenophobia & wailing up and down. The irony 😂😂😂

Jayrockk:
Try this fr Nigeria and u go collect

Because you're barbarians

TMKsouth:


Because you're barbarians

Because we don't tolerate bullshit

TMKsouth:


Ouch, go slow now.

The homophobes🇳🇬 are hurt by xenophobia & wailing up and down. The irony 😂😂😂

They're homophobic but they're hurt by xenophobia...same thing

Ozommadu:
Xenophobia Republic...


I can never forget what these niggars did to our brothers making a living in SA.

Same thing you people did to Ghanaians. Ghana must go!!

KingCold:
I would be if you weren't from that 5th world planet of the apes slum

Lol

Xenophobia slum dweller, what do you feel like?

Ozommadu:


Lol

Xenophobia slum dweller, what do you feel like?

A Nigerian using a slum jibe, forgetting his country's one giant slum oh the irony

@TMKSouth stop promoting homosexual agenda on a Nigerian forum!!!

Men don't fúck men in our country!

TMKsouth:


Ouch, go slow now.

The homophobes🇳🇬 are hurt by xenophobia & wailing up and down. The irony 😂😂😂

How can you enjoy sticking your dick down the ass of another man?

Even animals don't do that.

You homos make me sick!

KingCold:
A Nigerian using a slum jibe, forgetting his country's one giant slum oh the irony

You're not to be blamed nna oo...if not for tinubu, Apc and Buhari who stagnated this country.

Who are you to keep quoting me unnecessarily on nairaland

All these Lgbtq don highjack the rainbow color, and the word "pride" even the original meaning of gay is to be glad and happy, now the yeye people don hijack everything

Jayrockk:
Try this fr Nigeria and u go collect

wotowoto

People wey Bleep opposite sex dey do march for pride, pride of stupidity any day wey person go do that nonsense openly in Nigeria, we will teach them the language they understand, shikina

Earlystar698:
People wey Bleep opposite sex dey do march for pride, pride of stupidity any day wey person go do that nonsense openly in Nigeria, we will teach them the language they understand, shikina

Come to SA so we can teach u the language of xenophobia. Violence is your thing, right?

ONEjoblessGUY:
Stewpid.......
xenophobic black ass slaves forming woke.......

Xenophobia and homophobia,hate fighting hate,no one wins