A vigilante group calling itself “March and March,” led by Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, raided a refugee camp outside the Department of Home Affairs on Che Guevara Road in Durban on September 3, injuring at least four people, including a seven-year-old child who was stepped on as the crowd was dispersed.
The camp housed more than 300 legally verified refugees, most from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. Police responded to the raid with rubber bullets and stun grenades to break up the confrontation. Some of those injured suffered head wounds. The group’s leadership has indicated it plans to return to the site for further raids, raising fears of continued violence against the camp’s residents.
The raid is the latest flashpoint in a wave of xenophobic activity that has swept parts of South Africa this year. An estimated 25,000 migrants had already left the country since spring as vigilante campaigns targeting foreign nationals spread, and officials and aid workers say the true number leaving in the wake of incidents like the Durban raid is likely significantly higher.
South Africa has struggled for years to contain periodic outbreaks of xenophobic violence, often driven by competition over jobs, housing and public services in poor urban areas. Refugee advocates say legally verified status has offered little protection when vigilante groups target camps and settlements directly, as happened in Durban.
The episode adds South Africa to a growing list of African displacement crises this year, alongside the emergency in Cameroon’s Far North, where more than 510,000 people have been internally displaced by violence along the border with Nigeria. In both cases, families already living precariously are being pushed to move again by forces largely outside their control.
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Source: The Rio Times
