Durban, South Africa – Bishop Raphael Bahebwa is in hiding, afraid he may very well be attacked for talking out for the rights of foreigners in South Africa.
“I’m in hiding now as a result of they are saying they’re going to kill me for talking in regards to the rights of foreigners,” he informed Al Jazeera.
Bahebwa has lived in South Africa for 26 years, after arriving as a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
In that point, he has watched antiforeigner sentiment flare repeatedly within the nation he got here to name house. However he says this 12 months feels totally different.
A September 30 deadline declared by March and March, an anti-immigration motion that has led protests throughout South Africa this 12 months, has renewed fears of violence amongst migrant communities.
The group has referred to as for undocumented overseas nationals to go away South Africa and has warned of additional demonstrations if its calls for are usually not met.
For Bahebwa and different refugees in Durban, nonetheless, the excellence between documented and undocumented migrants affords little consolation. They are saying the hostility they expertise on the streets hardly ever begins with a request to see their papers.
Fears of renewed violence
South Africa will maintain native authorities elections on November 4, in a marketing campaign through which migration has turn into an more and more distinguished political and social difficulty.
For months, Bahebwa was amongst a whole lot of refugees and asylum seekers who slept on the pavement exterior the Durban Refugee Reception Centre on Che Guevara Street.
Many had been from the DRC and Burundi, with others from Uganda, Mozambique and Tanzania. They stated they’d fled their communities as a result of they feared antiforeigner assaults.
They arrived exterior the Division of Dwelling Affairs (DHA) workplace searching for security.
As a substitute, the pavement grew to become their house.
For roughly 4 months, males, girls and kids slept exterior, uncovered to the weather and depending on civil society organisations and volunteers for meals and different requirements.
“It has been very powerful,” Bahebwa stated. “By no means earlier than have I skilled one thing like this.”
A few of the migrants informed Al Jazeera that circumstances grew to become determined. They described irregular entry to meals and medicine and stated one man who had tuberculosis died whereas dwelling on the camp. Al Jazeera has not independently established the circumstances of his loss of life.
The camp was additionally not far faraway from the hostility its residents stated they’d fled.
On September 3, members of March and March confronted refugees and asylum seekers dwelling exterior the centre. Violence broke out, and police intervened. Not less than 4 individuals had been reported injured.
At one other protest days later, cops stood between the 2 teams, forming a barrier as tensions rose.
March and March has described its mobilisation as a marketing campaign in opposition to undocumented immigration, crime and deteriorating circumstances in South African communities.
The group says the federal government’s response to immigration enforcement has been inadequate.
Its leaders have repeatedly rejected accusations that their marketing campaign is xenophobic and demand their goal is undocumented migration reasonably than overseas nationals typically.
Bahebwa stated documented and undocumented migrants alike have been caught within the hostility.
Earlier this 12 months, six refugees working in salons round Durban’s Warwick Avenue Market had been overwhelmed by males carrying sticks, in line with public-interest information outlet GroundUp. Two had been hospitalised.
Bahebwa stated the migrants had additionally struggled to acquire assist from the authorities after earlier assaults.
“Police stated we will’t open circumstances as a result of we’re foreigners. We had nowhere to go,” he alleged. Police haven’t publicly responded to that particular allegation.
Nowhere apparent to return to
In mid-September, the federal government moved to clear the makeshift camp exterior the refugee centre.
The refugees got a selection: return to the communities they’d fled or settle for non permanent lodging on the Lindela facility in Gauteng, a whole lot of kilometres from Durban. Lindela is a government-run immigration detention facility used to carry individuals dealing with deportation.
The selection divided them.
Some feared going to Lindela, a facility traditionally related to immigration detention and repatriation. Others felt they may not endure life on the pavement.
On September 15, 274 individuals had been transported by bus from Durban to Lindela. About 150 others selected to stay in Durban and started looking for different lodging.
For individuals who stayed behind, leaving the pavement didn’t resolve the issue that had introduced them there within the first place.
Kafuti Muyumba, a small enterprise proprietor from the DRC and a consultant of the refugee group, stated many had been afraid to return to neighbourhoods the place they’d constructed companies and lives.
Individuals are afraid, he stated. “Even the police permit March and March violence. They got here with sticks and say we’re attacking them,” Muyumba informed Al Jazeera.
He stated many refugees had misplaced their livelihoods through the months of upheaval and had been now determined to seek out lodging.
“This isn’t the primary time we’re experiencing xenophobia,” he stated. “In 2008 after which in 2015 we additionally skilled this.”
In 2008, xenophobic violence unfold by townships and casual settlements, killing dozens and displacing 1000’s.
Additional outbreaks of violence in opposition to overseas nationals adopted in subsequent years.
For Muyumba, these recollections make the rhetoric surrounding September 30 troublesome to dismiss.
“We don’t belief the police. They aren’t being truthful with us. A few of them are additionally saying we should go,” he stated.
Police have stated there are not any plans to alter their regular policing method due to the September 30 deadline and that any protesters will probably be anticipated to stay throughout the regulation.
March and March stated all it desires is for undocumented immigrants to go away the nation and return house.
However Muyumba stated returning to the DRC isn’t a viable different for a lot of Congolese refugees.
“There may be nonetheless warfare there,” he stated.
A rustic tightening its borders
In response to ongoing protests, the South African authorities stated it had intensified its immigration enforcement.
Between June 14 and August 20, authorities processed 86,596 overseas nationals for deportation and repatriation, in line with the federal government’s Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration.
Malawians made up the biggest group, adopted by Zimbabweans and Mozambicans.
Authorities information says 90 % of these repatriated had entered South Africa illegally, whereas 95 % had been categorised as having crossed the border exterior official ports of entry.
The federal government says the operations type a part of a broader effort to strengthen border administration and implement immigration regulation.
On the identical time, officers have repeatedly warned non-public teams in opposition to taking immigration enforcement into their very own arms.
March and March’s September 30 deadline has no authorized authority. The federal government says frequent residents can’t deport anybody from South Africa.
![Protesters hold placards during an anti-immigration march in Durban, South Africa, calling for tighter border controls and the deportation of undocumented migrants [Thuli Dlamini/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2025-11-07T155727Z_1005019881_RC2NRHA84QWK_RTRMADP_3_SAFRICA-PROTEST-1782784993.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C483&quality=80)
However deadlines don’t want authorized pressure to create worry, as was the case for an earlier deadline of June 30. For the refugees who spent months sleeping exterior the DHA workplace in Durban, September 30 is one other uncertainty layered on high of many others.
Some have been moved a whole lot of kilometres away.
Others are looking for new properties in the identical communities they as soon as fled. However among the many migrants Al Jazeera spoke to, there’s a shared nervousness that paperwork might provide restricted safety when anger is directed first at being overseas.
Bahebwa has spent greater than 1 / 4 of a century in South Africa. For now, he says he’s hiding and doesn’t know what September 30 will convey.
“They’re scapegoating us as foreigners,” he stated. “It’s not going to finish on September 30. It has to do with the elections.”
