An anti-migrant protest in Durban turned violent on Thursday. Five people were injured and one foreign national was taken into police custody.
It was the latest anti-migrant protest to end in violence this year, and it played out on Che Guevara Road in Umbilo. Several hundred foreign nationals have been camping there, outside the Department of Home Affairs Refugee Reception Office, for close to three months.
About 100 members of the March and March movement marched from King Dinuzulu Park to the site under police escort. Organisers described the action as a “clean-up campaign” against undocumented migrants living on the street.
Trouble started when marchers allegedly began removing belongings that foreign nationals had left outside their shelters. A confrontation followed within minutes, and stones were thrown from both sides of the crowd.
Police in KwaZulu-Natal said a case was opened after a foreign national struck an officer with a stone during the standoff. The suspect was arrested at the scene. Detectives are continuing their investigation into the anti-migrant protest and the violence that followed.
Bishop Raphael leads a group of Congolese refugees camped at the site. He told the AFP news agency that five of his people were hurt in the clash, including two children.
“The march today was very violent,” he said. “They found us here and immediately attacked our people. We are not committing any crime by being here.”
Officers fired stun grenades and rubber bullets to force the two groups apart during the anti-migrant protest. Calm slowly returned to the street by evening.
Most of those living at the encampment fled their homes earlier this year. They were escaping threats tied to a wider anti-migrant campaign that swept the country. Many are asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, with smaller numbers from Burundi and Rwanda.
Durban has become one of the focal points of the anti-immigration campaign that has spread across South Africa since the middle of the year. Nationally, at least four foreign nationals have been killed since campaigners set an unofficial deadline in June for undocumented migrants to leave. Tens of thousands have left the country since then.
Refugee representatives at the Umbilo camp say they cannot safely return to the communities they fled. Conditions on the street remain harsh, with mobile toilets and donated tents among the only facilities available to families sleeping there.
Similar marches have taken place most weeks since June, and organisers say more are planned in the coming months.
March and March leaders have vowed to press ahead regardless of Thursday’s violence. They argue the anti-migrant protest movement will keep demonstrating until the government tightens border enforcement and speeds up asylum processing.
The Department of Home Affairs has not yet said how it intends to resolve the standoff over the Umbilo site. Families camped there say they are bracing for more confrontation in the weeks ahead.
