Sixteen vehicles burnt in Durban and Soweto as migration anger spills onto the streets

Sixteen vehicles were set alight in Durban and Soweto on Thursday during protests linked to asylum applications, and police in Durban arrested three foreign nationals for an assault that officers say triggered the violence in the CBD.

As IOL reported on 8 October, seven vehicles were burnt on Dr Pixley KaSeme Street and Park Lane in Durban, and nine were set alight near the Department of Home Affairs offices in Soweto. The Enquirer has not independently verified those counts.

Colonel Robert Netshiunda, a police spokesperson, said a group that had been marching against gender-based violence in the Durban CBD walked down Dr Pixley kaSeme Street afterwards to join another group marching at the Home Affairs offices. Information at this stage, he said, suggests that as they walked, one of them was allegedly assaulted by a foreign national and his leg was broken. What sparked the alleged assault is not yet clear.

Netshiunda said the group became angry and violence erupted, resulting in the burning of vehicles. Officers from Public Order Police and other police units, supported by Durban Metro Police, monitored the protest. Three foreign nationals were arrested for the assault. A lodge building and a warehouse were partially burnt and the fire was immediately extinguished, he said.

In Soweto, Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department Superintendent Xolani Fihla said nine vehicles were set alight near the Home Affairs offices. He said clashes between South Africans and foreign nationals ignited the protest, and that police were investigating allegations that gunshots were fired at the South African protesters, which could have led to the vehicles being set alight. No injuries were reported and the situation remained tense.

Activist Nkosinathi Ndabandaba called for calm in the Durban CBD on Thursday afternoon, telling the crowd they should not break the law despite their frustrations. By then shops had been looted and foreign nationals had already been attacked. Groups of men moved through the side streets damaging shops and setting alight a building on Joseph Nduli Street, formerly Russel Street.

The unrest followed a government briefing the night before. The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration set out measures to strengthen the asylum system and broader migration management after a Constitutional Court judgment that expanded access to the asylum determination process. The judgment caused an operational impact after Refugee Reception Offices saw a significant increase in people seeking to lodge asylum applications.

Briefing media in Pretoria on Thursday, IMC chairperson and Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Mmamoloko Kubayi said the committee is working with the Department of Home Affairs, the Border Management Authority, law enforcement agencies and other departments to address the immediate pressure on the asylum system.

Kubayi said the July judgment in the matter of the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town and another versus Minister of Home Affairs and others must not be interpreted as legalising unlawful migration or giving people an automatic right to remain in the country.

Attacks on people and the destruction of property are unlawful, whether or not the people involved believe they have a grievance. No group or individual may enforce immigration law, because that authority belongs to the state. A crowd that assaults a person, burns a vehicle or loots a shop commits a crime, and the cases opened in Durban and Soweto sit with the police and the courts.

Source: IOL, Sixteen vehicles torched in Durban and Soweto as anti-immigration protests continue