Durban and Soweto burn as anti-migrant marches spread, Ramaphosa sends 510 soldiers to KwaZulu-Natal

South Africans in Durban and Soweto have taken to the streets for months over the pressure they say migration puts on their communities, and this month those marches turned violent, with vehicles torched and shops looted. In Durban last week a foreign national was allegedly beaten to death by a crowd. The conduct reported in both cities is unlawful. Arson, looting and assault are crimes under South African law, and a killing is murder whether the person who dies is a South African or not.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has now ordered the deployment of 510 soldiers to KwaZulu-Natal to support police in controlling the anti-migrant protests, his office said on Tuesday. The deployment runs from October 9 until November 30 and is expected to cost R34.1 million. It comes before the November 4 local government elections and after calls by anti-migrant groups for nationwide protests.

The marches have drawn international criticism, and thousands of African foreign nationals have fled the country, according to the account published by Sunday World on 2026-10-27. That account is accurate on the events it describes, and this paper reports the same events here.

What a South African reader needs from the story is the load that put people on the street in the first place. The marches are about enforcement, about who may remain, who may be removed and what the state can actually deliver at Home Affairs, in clinics, in schools, in housing and in informal trading. Those are the questions the crowds have been putting to government all year, and the deployment of soldiers does not answer a single one of them.

Ramaphosa’s office said the deployment followed recent violence linked to misinformation about a Constitutional Court ruling on asylum seekers. The July ruling held that asylum seekers cannot be denied access to South Africa’s asylum system solely for procedural reasons. Whatever was said about that ruling on the streets and online, the court decided a question of procedure. It did not decide that South Africa’s borders are open, and it did not decide who may stay.

The state’s answer so far is 510 soldiers, a R34.1 million bill and a window that closes on November 30. South Africans who marched are entitled to ask what changes on December 1. The enforcement questions remain unanswered. How many people are in the asylum backlog. How many removals have been carried out this year. What Home Affairs can process in a week against what arrives in a week. Which clinics and schools are carrying a load they were never built for. The deployment is a policing measure and not an immigration policy, and the public argument will not end when the soldiers withdraw.

The Enquirer is seeking the full statement from the Presidency and the operational terms of the deployment from the South African National Defence Force and the South African Police Service, including which areas of KwaZulu-Natal the 510 soldiers will cover, what powers they will exercise and how the R34.1 million is broken down. We are also seeking the police case number for the Durban killing and the status of that investigation.