South African refugees brace for fresh threats as September 30 deportation deadline nears

Durban, South Africa – Bishop Raphael Bahebwa, a long‑time resident of Durban, is living in concealment after receiving threats for speaking out on behalf of foreign nationals in South Africa. “I am in hiding now because they say they are going to kill me for speaking about the rights of foreigners,” he told Al Jazeera.

Bahebwa arrived in South Africa as a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) 26 years ago. Over the decades he has witnessed recurring anti‑foreigner sentiment in the nation he now calls home, but he says the current climate feels more menacing.

A September 30 deadline issued by March and March—an anti‑immigration movement that has staged nationwide protests this year—has intensified anxiety among migrant communities. The group demands that undocumented foreign nationals leave South Africa and has warned of additional demonstrations if its calls are ignored.

For Bahebwa and other refugees in Durban, the legal status of migrants offers little protection. They report that street‑level hostility rarely begins with a request for paperwork; it targets them simply for being foreign.

Fears of renewed violence

South Africa’s local‑government elections are scheduled for 4 November, and migration has become a salient political and social issue in the campaign. In recent months, hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers, many from the DRC and Burundi as well as Uganda, Mozambique and Tanzania, slept on the pavement outside the Durban Refugee Reception Centre on Che Guvera Road. They had fled their own communities fearing anti‑foreigner attacks and sought refuge at the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) office.

For roughly four months, men, women and children occupied the sidewalk, exposed to the elements and dependent on civil‑society groups and volunteers for food and other basics. “It has been very tough,” Bahebwa said. “Never before have I experienced something like this.”

Some migrants described desperate conditions, including irregular access to food and medication. One man with tuberculosis died while living at the camp, they reported. Al Jazeera has not independently verified the circumstances of his death.

The makeshift settlement was also close to the hostility its residents had escaped. On 3 September, members of March and March confronted refugees and asylum seekers outside the centre. Scuffles erupted and police intervened; at least four people were reported injured.

At another protest days later, police formed a barrier between the two groups as tensions escalated. March and March frames its mobilisation as a campaign against undocumented immigration, crime and deteriorating community conditions, arguing that government enforcement has been inadequate. Its leaders repeatedly reject accusations of xenophobia, insisting their focus is on undocumented migration rather than foreigners in general.

Both documented and undocumented migrants have been caught in the crossfire, Bahebwa said. Earlier this year, six refugees working in salons near Durban’s Warwick Street Market were beaten by men wielding sticks, according to the public‑interest outlet GroundUp; two required hospitalisation.

He added that authorities were reluctant to help after such attacks. “Police said we can’t open cases because we are foreigners. We had nowhere to go,” he alleged. Police have not publicly responded to that specific claim.

Nowhere obvious to return to

In mid‑September the government moved to clear the pavement camp. Refugees were offered a stark choice: return to the communities they had fled or accept temporary accommodation at the Lindela facility in Gauteng, hundreds of kilometres from Durban. Lindela is a government‑run immigration‑detention centre used for holding people slated for deportation.

The decision divided the group. Some feared Lindela’s reputation for detention and repatriation; others could no longer endure life on the street.

On 15 September, 274 people were bused from Durban to Lindela. About 150 others remained in Durban and began searching for alternative housing. For those who stayed, leaving the pavement did not erase the danger that had driven them to it.

Kafuti Muyumba, a Congolese small‑business owner and community representative, said many refugees were afraid to return to neighbourhoods where they had built livelihoods. “Even the police allow March and March violence. They came with sticks and say we are attacking them,” Muyumba told Al Jazeera. He noted that many had lost businesses during the months of unrest and were now desperate for stable accommodation.

Recalling previous waves of xenophobia—in 2008 and 2015—he said the September 30 rhetoric was impossible to ignore. “We don’t trust the police. They are not being fair with us. Some of them are also saying we must go,” he said.

Police have stated that there are no plans to alter standard policing because of the September 30 deadline, and that any protesters must remain within the bounds of the law. March and March insists it merely wants undocumented immigrants to leave the country and return home. However, Muyumba pointed out that returning to the DRC is not feasible for many Congolese refugees because of ongoing conflict.

A country tightening its borders

In response to the ongoing protests, South Africa’s government said it had stepped up immigration enforcement. Between 14 June and 20 August, authorities processed 86 596 foreign nationals for deportation and repatriation, according to the Inter‑Ministerial Committee on Migration. Malawians formed the largest group, followed by Zimbabweans and Mozambicans.

Government data indicates that 90 % of those repatriated entered South Africa illegally, while 95 % crossed the border outside official ports of entry. Officials described the operations as part of a broader effort to strengthen border management and enforce immigration law. At the same time, authorities have repeatedly warned private groups against taking immigration enforcement into their own hands.

March and March’s September 30 deadline carries no legal authority, and the government has clarified that ordinary citizens cannot deport anyone. Yet deadlines need not be legally binding to generate fear, as seen with an earlier June 30 deadline. For refugees who spent months sleeping outside the DHA office in Durban, September 30 adds another layer of uncertainty to an already fraught existence.

Some have been moved hundreds of kilometres from home; others are trying to find new housing in the same communities they fled. Across the migrants Al Jazeera interviewed, there is a shared anxiety that paperwork may offer limited protection when anger is directed first at foreigners. Bahebwa, who has spent more than a quarter‑century in South Africa, remains in hiding. “They are scapegoating us as foreigners,” he said. “It is not going to end on September 30. It has to do with the elections.”

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