Protesters gesture towards people they believe to be undocumented foreign nationals while marching during a demonstration by the “March and March” and Operation Dudula movements marking an unofficial deadline set by citizen-led groups for undocumented foreign nationals to leave South Africa, in Johannesburg, on June 30, 2026. Thousands of demonstrators massed across South African cities on June 30, 2026, venting anger at undocumented foreign nationals as police mounted a major operation to head off looting and xenophobic violence that has claimed four lives.
The nationwide protests cap weeks of demonstrations called by a loose coalition of minor political parties and small citizen-led vigilante groups, which set an unofficial June 30 deadline for foreigners without residency papers to leave. (Photo by EMMANUEL CROSET / AFP)
Ransacked shelves and discarded packaging were all that remained inside several shops near the port city of Durban on Wednesday, which were looted during protests demanding that undocumented foreign nationals leave South Africa.
Several thousand people marched across the country Tuesday after a weeks-long campaign led by fringe groups for illegal migrants to go home by June 30, a push that had already led thousands to flee.
