South Africa. Workers stayed home, shops were shut and buses sat idle across South Africa on Tuesday, as demonstrators gathered across the country for anti-immigrant marches that many fear will descend into violence.
Many foreign nationals from elsewhere in Africa stayed away from work, and thousands had already fled ahead of Tuesday's "deadline" set by the demonstrators for all undocumented migrants to leave.
In parts of the main commercial city Johannesburg and the port city of Durban, several dozen protesters, some armed with wooden sticks, gathered.
"People are not working, the jobs are being taken by illegal foreigners. It's not fair," Silindile Xaba, 31, said, among a group of women chanting anti-migrant slogans in central Durban.
Violence against migrants
