“The march today was very violent,” said Bishop Raphael, who leads a group of Congolese refugees camped outside a government office in Durban. “They found us here and immediately attacked our people.”
That was Thursday, September 3. About 100 marchers had come to the camp to protest against undocumented migrants in the city. By the end of the day, community leaders at the site counted five injured Congolese, two of them children. Police arrested one foreign national, accused of hurling a stone that hit an officer.
Sticks, stones and stun grenades
Raphael said the marchers carried sticks and tried to storm the encampment. Police stepped in between the two sides and fired stun grenades to break up the crowds. The injuries, he said, came in that confusion. GroundUp, looking back at the clash, wrote that police also used rubber bullets.
The camp sits outside the Home Affairs office. Several hundred foreign nationals live there, most of them from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and many say they are refugees. They moved in 13 weeks before the clash, looking for shelter from mobs of South Africans targeting migrants. GroundUp put it at more than three months, with hundreds of refugees camped there seeking protection from xenophobic attacks.
A June 30 deadline
Durban’s tensions have been building since June. Fringe groups set a June 30 deadline for undocumented migrants to leave South Africa. According to AFP’s count, drawn from repatriation figures given by African governments, more than 200,000 people left the country. South African police have confirmed that at least four migrants were killed. Some foreign governments say the number is higher.
