DURBAN, Thursday 3 September 2026 — KwaZulu-Natal police used rubber bullets and crowd-management measures in central Durban on Thursday after members of anti-immigration group March and March clashed with migrants and refugees living outside the city’s Home Affairs offices.
The confrontation occurred on Che Guevara Road, where a group of migrants has been camping after being displaced during earlier anti-immigration actions in the city.
KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda confirmed that officers intervened after a physical confrontation broke out and said police used what he described as “minimum crowd-management proportional force” to restore order.
Police were also registering a case against a foreign national accused of striking a police officer with a stone during the confrontation, Netshiunda said.
The suspect was expected to appear in court once police procedures had been completed.
Eyewitness News reporters at the scene said Public Order Police fired rubber bullets and pepper spray while attempting to separate the groups.
The Witness reported that the confrontation began after about 100 March and March supporters conducted what they called a clean-up campaign in the area.
Police said protesters allegedly began removing belongings belonging to foreign nationals before a physical confrontation erupted.
TimesLIVE and Sowetan reported that protesters subsequently removed furniture, clothes and other possessions from the pavement and threw items into the road.
At least three people required treatment during the confrontation, according to contemporaneous reporting from the scene.
The precise number and severity of injuries had not been officially confirmed by police by Thursday afternoon.
The migrants involved include people reported to be from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Somalia.
Some have remained outside the Durban Refugee Reception Centre for months while seeking assistance after earlier anti-immigration mobilisation displaced foreign nationals from communities elsewhere in the city.
March and March has become increasingly prominent in KwaZulu-Natal through demonstrations demanding stricter enforcement against undocumented migrants.
The group has previously organised protests targeting businesses, workplaces and areas where it believes undocumented foreign nationals are living or working.
Thursday’s confrontation marks a significant escalation because it resulted in a direct clash between protesters and migrants requiring intervention by Public Order Police.
Immigration has also become an increasingly visible political issue ahead of South Africa’s 4 November local government elections.
The issue carries particular significance in eThekwini, one of the country’s most competitive metropolitan municipalities, where migration, informal trading, unemployment, policing and municipal enforcement have become recurring subjects of political campaigning.
The legal status of individual migrants should not be inferred from their presence at the refugee centre or from claims made by protesters.
March and March describes its campaign as being directed against illegal immigration, but refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants may hold different forms of legal status under South African law.
Civil society organisation Siyafana Sonke Action Campaign condemned Thursday’s action and accused March and March of targeting vulnerable refugees.
That characterisation represents the organisation’s position and is not a finding by law-enforcement authorities.
The confrontation comes amid wider government efforts to intensify immigration and business-compliance enforcement in KwaZulu-Natal.
Premier Thami Ntuli has called for province-wide operations targeting undocumented migration and businesses alleged to be violating labour and other regulatory requirements after a joint government operation in Pietermaritzburg resulted in the arrest of 29 undocumented migrants.
Government enforcement operations and independently organised anti-immigration campaigns are, however, separate processes.
Only authorised state institutions have the legal authority to determine immigration status, conduct immigration enforcement and make arrests.
The Durban confrontation is likely to increase pressure on SAPS, Home Affairs, the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government and eThekwini authorities to clarify how they intend to manage further demonstrations and protect people gathered around the refugee reception centre.
Further political significance will depend on whether Thursday’s events lead to additional arrests, criminal charges, government intervention over the displaced migrants or renewed mobilisation by March and March.
With municipal elections now about two months away, any further escalation could also push immigration enforcement and public-order policing more prominently into the eThekwini election campaign.
