Anti-migrant protests in two cities in South Africa have turned violent, with the government blaming disinformation about a court ruling on asylum seekers. Violence erupted on Thursday in Johannesburg’s Soweto township and the east coast port city of Durban, with two dozens cars set ablaze and foreign-run businesses forced to close, police said. The unrest followed demonstrations demanding that refugee centres stop processing asylum applications.
Acting National Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Puleng Dimpane on Thursday said 10 vehicles were torched in Johannesburg and 14 in Durban, where three people were arrested. In Soweto, a reporter saw residents carrying groceries out of a shop they said was owned by a person from Somalia, whom they chased away. Those residents fled after police arrived.
In Durban, a reporter saw cars torched in the urban centre, where foreign-owned shops were also looted. reporters in the city said police opened fire with rubber bullets to disperse protesters who reportedly set alight a business run by foreigners. The protesters are opposed to a July Constitutional Court decision that removes procedural barriers to seeking asylum, including for people who entered South Africa irregularly, lacked asylum transit visas, or missed reporting deadlines. On Thursday, the government’s Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration held an urgent briefing to address overcrowding at asylum offices after implementing the ruling.
A day prior, the committee said all its offices were overwhelmed by the number of incoming applications. Government spokesperson William Baloyi said the violence was triggered by people spreading deliberately false information about the constitutional court ruling. Baloyi said the court decision had been widely misrepresented, and that it did not automatically grant refugee status, permanent residence or other legal rights to undocumented migrants.
Months of protests by populist, anti-immigrant groups against undocumented foreign nationals, demanding they leave South Africa, have led tens of thousands to flee, some repatriated by their governments. Three decades since apartheid ended, South Africa remains deeply unequal and about a third of people are out of work. Migrants are often blamed for taking jobs, fuelling crime and straining public services, although such claims are not supported by evidence.
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