A strong police contingent, including dozens of officers, at least four police buses, several tactical vehicles and what appeared to be a mobile prisoner trailer, remained stationed outside the Home Affairs offices on Che Guevara Road in Durban’s Berea on Thursday, ahead of a biker’s convoy by anti-illegal immigration group March and March.

KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda said the deployment had been in place for the past two weeks and declined to say whether additional officers would be brought in for the biker convoy, scheduled to begin at 5pm, citing “operational” reasons.

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The area was “safe”, he told Inside Politics.

Across the road from the police, about 30 March and March supporters were gathered near the offices, an area that has been the scene of violent confrontations between protesters, foreign nationals and police in the past weeks.

Hours earlier on Thursday, a foreign national was beaten to death by a mob of about 50 people in Russell Street in central Durban, just a day after March and March and e-hailing drivers staged a motorcade through the city.

Police have not said that murder is connected to March and March supporters, and have said that investigations are ongoing.

The March and March supporters on Che Guevara road, who gather opposite Home Affairs offices almost daily, told Inside Politics they did not want to be photographed or have their names published.

Some, however, were willing to talk, while others in the group were sitting in camping chairs or simply standing about in the shade of donated gazebos.

One man was putting the finishing touches to a feather duster that appeared to have been fashioned into a rudimentary knopkiere. Others were openly carrying sticks.

Another man, with sunglasses on and the rest of his face obscured by a cotton scarf, said he had to dress that way to “hide” because threats had been made against him “by my own people”.

A woman wearing a March and March T-shirt said she was with the group daily. Asked where she slept, she laughed and said, “soldiers don’t sleep”.

The woman said she wanted “foreign criminals” out of the area. “We have our own criminals too, just look at the Madlanga [Commission], but first these ones must go,” she said.

Durban residents and businesses have been on high alert for weeks as anti-illegal immigrant protests – some large and organised, others appearing to be opportunistic and ragtag –  take place sporadically throughout the city and some of its suburbs on almost a daily basis.

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On Wednesday, a video emerged of a mob in the CBD beating a man believed to be a foreign national. Police were able to intervene. Netshiunda did not offer any comment on the assault when asked.

Also on Wednesday, a group of men were harassing businesses close to the Durban Botanic Gardens along Cowey Road. The men had covered faces and sticks. Security groups who were present said they understood the men were part of March and March, but this could not be verified by Inside Politics.

Later on, stores were attacked – with one nearly set alight –  on Berea Road, close to the Durban University of Technology.

Two weeks ago, protestors targeted foreign-owned businesses in the Berea area, where they looted shops and set vehicles alight. Some of the torched shops were locally-owned.

At Wednesday night’s e-hailing rally, March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma threatened a larger protest on 10 November if government went ahead with its online asylum registration system.

Home Affairs wants to introduce the system by that date, allowing asylum seekers to register their intention to apply online and obtain appointments at refugee reception offices.

The decision follows a July Constitutional Court ruling that struck down provisions allowing asylum seekers without transit visas to be deported.

Online registration, however, does not automatically grant asylum or legal refugee status.

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Police have identified leads in their investigation into looting following immigration protests in Soweto, with arrests expected soon, according to Acting National Police Commissioner Lt Gen Puleng Dimpane.

“We will be investigating those cases. In terms of [those] responsible for this mayhem of yesterday, we have leads, and we will pursue them and very soon we will bring them to justice,” she said on Friday.

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“We are here to brief the premier and give comfort that the situation remains calm. We remain in the area and any other area that may prove to be difficult in this regard.” 

Dimpane was speaking to the media in Soweto on Friday following an overnight deployment of police and South African National Defence Force personnel in the area.

She said that nine cases of malicious damage to property, public violence and common assault linked to the Soweto protests have been opened.

Anti-immigration protests erupted across some parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday. They quickly turned violent with some protesters looting and burning shops owned by foreign nationals. Cars were also torched.

Dimpane said law enforcement deployments had been reinforced, with police continuing to monitor the situation throughout the day to restore calm, maintain law and order and return the community to normalcy.

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“We have arrived since 6am. There will be calm in these areas. We will be making our rounds to [give our] support and to ensure… that indeed those forces that we mobilised last night are still intact in this regard,” said Dimpane. 

The recent wave of protests followed the Home Affairs Department issuing a directive that permitted refugee reception offices to accept asylum applications from all people seeking protection, regardless of how they entered South Africa. It was withdrawn of Friday.

Tensions remain high in KwaZulu-Natal and there is a heavy police presence in Durban.

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More than 45,000 foreign nationals have been processed at the Temporary Repatriation Processing Centre (TRPC) in Musina, Limpopo, as government continues a large-scale operation to manage deportation and voluntary repatriation requests.

Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs said it was told during the first day of its urgent two-day oversight visit that more than 38,000 foreign nationals had been processed for deportation or repatriation procedures in less than a week, as of Saturday, 4 July.

“The information presented to the committee and the observations made on site indicate significant progress in this regard,” said committee chairperson Mosa Chabane.

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Committee members assessed the implementation of immigration legislation, operational readiness and compliance with constitutional and humanitarian obligations at the facility.

In a statement, the committee said it was satisfied with the coordination between

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eThekwini Mayor Cyril Xaba has come under fire after viral video clips showed him telling a man to “shut up your mouth” during a tense engagement at Sherwood, where thousands of mainly Malawian nationals have gathered while awaiting repatriation or deportation processing.

The clip, which circulated widely on social media, showed Xaba saying: “Hey, I’m talking with the Africans. Shut up your mouth. I’m not talking to you.”

The remarks triggered criticism online and from uMkhonto weSizwe Party MP Visvin Reddy, who said the man Xaba addressed was South African and accused the mayor of using identity politics to avoid accountability.

Xaba’s office has defended him, saying the video clips had been shared without the full context of his visit to Sherwood.

“The Mayor was conducting a scheduled oversight visit to address the prolonged and unlawful occupation of City spaces by foreign nationals,” his office said.

Sherwood has

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eThekwini Municipality said on Friday that the temporary use of the old Durban Drive-In site — near Suncoast Casino and the famed Golden Mile — to process undocumented foreign nationals would not affect plans to develop the beachfront property.

“eThekwini Municipality wishes to reassure investor partners that the temporary use of the Drive-In Site as a staging and processing facility for undocumented foreign nationals will not compromise the site’s long-term development,” the municipality said in a statement.

The statement comes as various government departments are trying to process thousands of foreign nationals in Durban, many of them Malawians, who have been camping in the Sherwood area, about six kilometres from the city centre.

The Malawians were chased from informal settlements in and around the Durban area by anti-illegal immigrant “activists”, adding to the tension being experienced in the province and the country as a June 30 “deadline” nears,

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The first group of Ghanaian nationals left South Africa from O.R. Tambo International Airport on Wednesday as part of a voluntary repatriation process arranged by the Ghanaian government, as tensions continue to flare over undocumented migrants.

According to the Department of Home Affairs, only 10 out of the 300 individuals screened before departure were found to be legally in the country.

Home Affairs’ Immigration and Law Enforcement Head Stephen van Neel told the SABC that the majority of those processed were undocumented, had overstayed, or had violated immigration laws.

“Of the 300 individuals that were on that list, we only found 10 of them being legal in the country, the rest of them are illegal without documents or actually not complying or have overstayed, but there are some sanctions that need to be taken, and the Department of Home Affairs will indeed make sure those are implemented,”

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eThekwini Mayor Cyril Xaba has asked Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber to urgently intervene after hundreds of foreign nationals who were processed by immigration officials remained camped outside the Department of Home Affairs offices in Durban.

Xaba said the group should be moved to suitable temporary accommodation, warning that the situation had become a humanitarian concern, particularly for women and children sleeping on the streets.

The group had gathered outside Durban’s Diakonia Centre last week, saying they feared for their safety in several KZN communities because of rising anti-immigration tensions.

On Thursday, an integrated team including eThekwini Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal police, the Department of Home Affairs and other government departments intervened to verify the legal status of those gathered at the centre.

The group was transported by bus to the Department of Home Affairs’ Durban Refugee Reception Centre on Che Guevara Road, where 457 foreign nationals were processed.

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The Department of Home Affairs has moved to clear up confusion over the status of Zimbabwe Exemption Permit holders, saying there has been no change in policy and that current permits remain valid until late May 2027.

The clarification follows recent reports sparked by remarks made by Deputy Minister Njabulo Nzuza in a television interview on Newzroom Afrika.

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In a statement issued this week, the department said ZEP holders do not qualify for permanent residence under the conditions of the current permit.

It said Nzuza’s interview, which dealt with the revised White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection, had been misinterpreted in some media reports.

Home Affairs said it wanted to state “categorically” that there had been no policy shift on ZEP holders.

The ZEP programme has been under legal and political scrutiny for years.

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Parliament has reopened debate on long-standing gaps in South Africa’s referendum laws, after Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Annelie Lotriet briefed the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on her Private Member’s Bill seeking to amend the Electoral Commission Act of 1996.

Presenting the Bill on Tuesday, Lotriet said it was necessary to align legislation with the Constitution, which already gives Premiers the power to call provincial referendums.

“The Act therefore fails to comply with the Constitution by giving effect to the Premier’s powers and functions,” she told the committee.

She emphasised that Parliament needed to address the gap before the matter ends up in the courts. 

“I also think it is perhaps important that Parliament acts proactively instead of waiting for a court judgement which then will ask Parliament and give it a limited time to process such legislation,” she said.

Lotriet tabled the Bill in

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