A long line of people waiting to apply for asylum in Durban, South Africa, broke apart on Wednesday when anti-immigration groups carrying sticks and sjamboks, a kind of heavy whip, arrived at the Home Affairs Refugee Reception Centre on Che Guevara Road. By the end of the day the U.S. Consulate General in the city had warned its staff to steer clear of the downtown business district.
What happened
Eyewitness News described a line of about a thousand foreign nationals snaking along the road that morning, watched by a heavy police presence. When the protesters showed up, many in line left out of fear for their safety. IOL reported that demonstrators accused police of protecting foreigners instead of South Africans, pushed through barricades and threw bottles, and that public order police fired stun grenades to break up the crowd. Among those waiting were people from Ethiopia, Somalia, Bangladesh and Pakistan, IOL said.
Later in the afternoon, police escorted asylum seekers to nearby streets so they could get home, and businesses along the road closed, according to East Coast Radio. The U.S. consulate said it was aware of reports of looting and violence targeting foreign nationals in the central business district, including near the Bayside Hotel, and told personnel to exercise "extreme caution."
Who was protesting
Two groups were involved. Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, leader of March and March, said Home Affairs should clear its backlog and work out who has a genuine refugee claim, IOL reported. Nkosikhona Ndabandaba of Insizwa Nobunsizwa told Eyewitness News his group came to demonstrate peacefully against the court ruling and "to protect the foreigners" as well, saying "we just don't want the system the way it's operating." The groups dispersed and vowed to return if foreign nationals came back.
The court ruling behind the line
The crowd formed because of a July 7 ruling by South Africa's Constitutional Court in a case brought by the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town, a nonprofit that helps migrants. The court struck down parts of the Refugees Act that let officials deport asylum seekers who lacked a transit visa and required "good cause" interviews before they could apply, the government news agency SAnews reported. Home Affairs then directed its refugee offices to accept applications from people who show up in person.
The department, which fought the case, said on Wednesday that it is bound to follow the ruling. It called claims that the decision grants citizenship or blanket legal status to foreigners "categorically false" and said it would refer a disinformation campaign against the minister to the country's electoral commission.