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A foreign citizen was beaten to death by a group of about 50 people during a protest march in Durban, South Africa, police said Thursday, according to CNN.
Police said the group approached the man as he stood beside a road during a march through the city centre and assaulted him.
Authorities did not immediately disclose the man’s nationality or what the march was about. They said he was in his 30s or early 40s and that investigators were still trying to identify suspects.
Anti-immigrant tensions and reports of violence
South Africa has faced months of rising anti-immigration tensions. Marches demanding government action against migrants living in the country illegally have sometimes turned violent.
Nigeria, Mozambique, Malawi and other countries have said some of their citizens were killed in xenophobic attacks linked to the protests. South African authorities have disputed some of those claims, saying some deaths were related to criminal activity rather than the protests.
Tens of thousands of migrants have left South Africa in recent months in one of the country’s largest mass exoduses in years. Many have cited the threat of violence from angry locals, while the government has said many others were deported for lacking the required documents.
South Africa, Africa’s biggest economy, attracts migrants from across the continent. The influx has sometimes fuelled tensions in communities amid extremely high unemployment and pressure on public services.
Durban, the country’s third-biggest city, has nearly four million residents and has become a focal point for anti-immigrant tensions that have risen this year.
Recent developments in Durban and Soweto
In June, thousands of migrants, mainly from Malawi, gathered at a park in Durban seeking repatriation. They said they were fleeing threats of violence after a protest group called for undocumented migrants to leave South Africa by June 30.
The number of migrants seeking to leave grew so quickly that authorities built additional temporary accommodation centres to manage the influx.
This month, cars were set alight and shops looted in Soweto, a Johannesburg township, after a court ruling made it easier for foreign citizens to apply for asylum in South Africa. Many submitted applications at government buildings, prompting a reaction from local residents.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has condemned violence linked to immigration while acknowledging that failures in border controls over the years have allowed migrants to enter and remain in South Africa without documentation.
Official government figures put the number of foreign nationals in South Africa at about 2.4 million, out of a population of 62 million. Protesters say many more undocumented people are in the country and have not been counted.
