Members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) escort a foreign national resisting to get into a bus from the Diakonia Centre to the Home Affairs offices in Durban on May 21, 2026. (Photo by RAJESH JANTILAL / AFP)
Authorities removed Thursday scores of foreign nationals who had sought protection from anti-migrant groups at a church centre in Durban in a days-long standoff, highlighting xenophobic tensions in South Africa.
Campaigns by small citizen-led groups against undocumented migrants have picked up in recent months, but without reaching the level of violence seen in waves of anti-foreigner attacks over previous years.
Police herded about 400 migrants from countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Somalia onto buses and removed them from the complex in the east coast city where some had been camped for days.
Local anti-immigrant campaigners cheered and chanted “They must go!” as the foreign nationals — including women and children — were driven to a government refugee centre.
