Durban mob kills immigrant man amid rising anti-foreigner unrest

A crowd of approximately 50 people beat an immigrant man to death in the central business district of Durban on Thursday morning, police reported, marking another fatal incident in a series of anti-foreigner tensions in the city.

The attack occurred as a crowd marched along Dr Pixley kaSeme Street toward Maud Mfusi Street, according to KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda. Investigators stated that two individuals initially detached themselves from the main crowd to approach the victim before roughly 50 people joined in the fatal beating. Authorities have launched a murder investigation, and the victim has not yet been officially identified by the police.

An unidentified security guard working nearby told news agency GroundUp that the victim appeared to be walking to work around 7 a.m. when the mob singled him out. The guard noted that vigilante groups targeting foreign nationals had been unsettling local shopkeepers and residents for several weeks, adding that law enforcement and metro police had maintained a minimal presence before the deadly encounter.

Following the fatal attack, nearly all shops in the surrounding blocks remained shut throughout the day as local traders feared escalating unrest. The security guard mentioned that even South African merchants had started locking their storefronts, worried that roaming crowds might mistakenly target them. South African Police Service officers and South African National Defence Force personnel were later seen patrolling the vicinity.

The killing comes amid a spike in xenophobic hostilities across the coastal city. Just a day prior, on Wednesday, a Ugandan national was assaulted by another mob in Durban. Two weeks earlier, violence also broke out on Dr Pixley kaSeme Street during an anti-migrant demonstration involving hundreds of marchers.

Tensions in the region flared up following a Department of Home Affairs directive issued on 28 September, which sought to carry out a Constitutional Court decision preventing asylum seekers from being rejected on procedural grounds before their cases are evaluated. Although the department later retracted the directive on 9 October, unrest has continued. Later on Thursday, another demonstration formed on Che Guevara Road near the local refugee reception facility, raising concerns about potential further marches into the city center.