CAPE TOWN: A foreign citizen was beaten to death by a group of around 50 people during a protest march in South Africa’s east coast city of Durban, police said Thursday, as anti-immigrant tensions continue to flare in Africa’s most advanced economy.
Police said the group approached the man, who was standing at the side of a road during a march through the streets of Durban’s city center, and assaulted him.
Police did not immediately give the man’s nationality or details on what the march was related to. They said the victim was in his 30s or early 40s, and they were still trying to identify suspects in the attack.
South Africa has struggled with months of anti-immigration tensions. Marches calling for government action against migrants in the country illegally have sometimes spilled over into violence.
Nigeria, Mozambique, Malawi and other countries have said some of their citizens have been killed in xenophobic attacks linked to the anti-immigration protests. South African authorities have disputed some of those claims and said some deaths were related to criminal activity and not the protests.
Tens of thousands of migrants have left South Africa in recent months in one of the biggest mass exoduses in years. Many cite the threat of violence from angry locals, though the government also said that many were deported for not having the proper documents to be in South Africa.
As Africa’s biggest economy, South Africa attracts migrants from many nations on the continent, but that has sometimes brought tensions within communities because of the country’s extremely high unemployment rate and overburdened public services.
Durban, South Africa’s third biggest city of nearly four million people, has become a hotspot for the anti-immigrant tensions that have surged this year.
In June, thousands of migrants mainly from Malawi gathered at a park in the city seeking to be repatriated to their home country. They claimed they were fleeing threats of violence after a protest group demanded undocumented migrants leave South Africa by June 30.
The camp of migrants seeking to leave grew so quickly that authorities had to build more temporary accommodation centers to handle the numbers.
This month, cars were torched and shops were looted in the Johannesburg township of Soweto after a court ruling made it easier for foreign citizens to claim asylum in South Africa, leading to many making applications at government buildings and sparking a reaction from locals.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has denounced violence related to immigration but has also acknowledged failures in the border control system over years that have allowed migrants to travel to and stay in South Africa without documentation.
South Africa’s official government figures show there are around 2.4 million foreign nationals among the country’s population of 62 million, but protesters say there are many more in South Africa without documentation who haven’t been counted.