As March and March’s anti-migrant rhetoric continues to fuel fear across KwaZulu-Natal, documented refugees and asylum seekers say they are being targeted despite having legal status.
Documented refugees forced to flee burning homes — the malignant reach of anti-migrant xenophobia. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
“We feel so betrayed. We feel lost most of the time. I feel scared. I feel very, very scared,” Elikya* told Daily Maverick, sitting at the kitchen table of a house she had fled to, following a xenophobic attack in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
Elikya is a documented asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and has lived in South Africa her entire life. Despite this fact, she was not spared from the most recent wave of xenophobia that has spread across the country.
Foreign nationals from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) shelter outside the Department of Home Affairs in Durban on 1 July 2026. The group has been sleeping outside the offices while awaiting assistance and the processing of their immigration documentation amid ongoing uncertainty over their status. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
Only a week earlier, on 25 June, Elikya’s life and that of her family were violently disrupted when a group of 20 men arrived at her home in Greenwood Park and burnt it down.
The feared date of 30 June, March and March’s unofficial deadline for all undocumented migrants to leave South Africa, or else, has come and gone.
While the main demonstration is over, with more than 25,000 people from various African countries having been repatriated so far, many are still waiting to be processed at the temporary repatriation processing centre in Musina, Limpopo and those who chose to stay face daily victimisation.
In response to concerns that the group’s rhetoric was blatantly xenophobic, March and March leaders have, on many occasions, reiterated that they are targeting only people who are in the country illegally.
But what is actually happening on the ground paints a very different picture. Refugees, asylum seekers and documented people are actively being targeted by vigilante groups regurgitating March and March’s anti-migrant rhetoric.
Elikya’s story highlights this perfectly. While their asylum-seeker status allowed them to build a life in South Africa for 29 years, they lost everything in a single night.
Armed vigilantes raze Congolese family home
For Elikya, the fire that destroyed her family’s rented home was not only an attack on property. It was an attack on a life her family had spent almost three decades building in South Africa.
Her family arrived in the country in 1997 after fleeing conflict in the DRC. “We are refugees,” she said. “It’s not like we just felt like relocating to South Africa.” With asylum-seeker documentation, her parents started a new life in South Africa. Her father worked as a security guard and later taught French at a school in Durban. Her mother sold a variety of clothing items from their home. The children went to school. In 2009, they moved into the Greenwood Park house that would become their family home.
“We built a whole entire life. Everything of mine is here. I did everything here. I work here. I’ve got kids here,” Elikya said.
That life was violently disrupted when the group of about 20 men arrived at the house and ordered the family to leave within 24 hours. Elikya said they were armed with sticks and demanded that the men in the house come outside. When her sister refused to open the door, the men allegedly issued a chilling threat: “Just remove the kids and see if we’re not going to burn the adults in the house.”
This residence housing refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo was burnt down on Thursday, 25 June, in Greenwood Park, Durban, in the build-up to the March and March 30 June protest. (Photo: Supplied)
The family called the police repeatedly. According to Elikya, one female officer responded that they were busy and told them to “just pray”.
Terrified, the family grabbed their documents and clothes and fled. They left behind furniture, appliances, personal belongings and years of memories. “Where are you going to go in 24 hours with furniture?” she asked. “We had everything inside — our whole life.”
Late on 25 June, the attackers returned. Lina said they locked the back gate from the outside, broke the garage window and threw in a petrol bomb. Inside the garage was a large nail-production machine her brother had bought while preparing to start a business.
“The impact caused a very massive explosion,” she said. Fridges, freezers, stoves and gas appliances intensified the fire. By morning, the roof was gone and much of the house had been destroyed.
For Elikya, the locked gate proved the attackers wanted more than destruction. “They would have died,” she said of anyone who might have been inside. “For me this is not just like, ‘Oh, they are burning houses.’ They had intention to kill people.”
Vigilantes threw a petrol bomb into this Democratic Republic of Congo refugees’ home in Greenwood Park, Durban, on Thursday, 25 June, burning it down. (Photo: Supplied)
Now, the family is scattered. Elikya’s mother, traumatised, has been sent to stay with relatives in Johannesburg. Others are staying with friends, church members and relatives. Children have been uprooted from the schools they loved. A niece in Grade 12 must now face matric under the weight of displacement and fear.
The attack has also shattered Elikya’s sense of belonging. She said the family initially believed that because they were documented, they would be safe. “And then now realising, no, it’s everybody. Legal people are being targeted. Legal people are getting hurt every single day as well,” she said.
She does not believe justice will come easily. But she spoke because silence, she said, would be worse. “Even if nothing is going to come out of that… we are not going to hold back. This has to be heard.”
HIDDEN CRISIS
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Che Guevara migrants feel abandoned
Meanwhile, on Che Guevara Road in the Durban CBD, a humanitarian crisis is unfolding as a result of March and March’s demands.
People from the Democratic Republic of the Congo shelter outside the Department of Home Affairs in Durban on 1 July 2026. The group has been sleeping outside the offices while awaiting assistance and the processing of their documentation amid ongoing uncertainty. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
At least 400 documented refugees and asylum seekers have been camped out in front of the Department of Home Affairs offices in the city centre for eight weeks after fleeing their homes under the threat of xenophobic violence.
For weeks, women, children and men have been braving the KZN sun in the mornings and chilly winter evenings when night falls.
When Daily Maverick visited the site, the atmosphere was tense with fear and suspicion. The spokesperson for the group refused to speak to the publication, angry that weeks had passed with no solution for their plight.
People from the Democratic Republic of Congo shelter outside the Department of Home Affairs in Durban on 1 July 2026. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
A woman who identified herself only as Princess told Daily Maverick how she had lived in fear with hundreds of other displaced refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, sleeping outside with children, pregnant women, elderly people and the sick. What began as threats from March and March has become a daily struggle for safety, food and dignity.
The 33-year-old said the situation had left families exposed to harsh weather and constant anxiety. “Most of the time you don’t sleep at night because you don’t know who’s coming to attack you. Sometimes it’s raining. People get sick,” she said.
Princess, who is half Ghanaian and half Congolese, said South Africa was the only home she knew. She arrived as a baby and grew up in the country. “There’s no way I can say I’m leaving,” she said. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
Foreign nationals from the Democratic Republic of Congo outside the Department of Home Affairs in Durban on 1 July 2026. Many people in the group are documented, with refugee or asylum papers. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
She said many people in the group were documented, with refugee or asylum papers. Princess said officials had verified 457 people. Only two were found to be without valid documents and deported.
Despite this, she said their businesses had been destroyed and they could not safely return to their communities. “We can’t go back to the communities, and we’re not leaving here. All we need now is shelter,” she said.
As uncertainty stretches on, Princess’s plea remains simple: “Anybody from anywhere who can give us shelter should give us shelter so we can leave the streets.”
Daily Maverick sent questions to the eThekwini Municipality, asking about the metro’s plan for the refugees and asylum seekers, but has received no acknowledgement of receipt or response.
On Wednesday, 1 July, the publication saw municipal officials and police on Che Guevara Road. A municipal officer who initially refused to engage told this journalist that the City was in the beginning stages of forming a plan for displaced refugees. The group has been camped outside the Department of Home Affairs offices since the end of May.
HATE ON PARADE
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Malawian migrants flee to Old Durban Drive-in again
Less than two days after the City of eThekwini cleared the old Durban Drive-in, where the municipality and the Department of Home Affairs spent two weeks facilitating the repatriation of mostly Malawian nationals who had fled there to escape the prospect of xenophobic violence, a fresh group of migrants has arrived there.
Daily Maverick watched as migrants trickled to the gate surrounding the entrance of the old drive-in, taking their places in line with their luggage in tow.
One of the women waiting outside the drive-in said that March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese Zuma’s vow that the organisation would continue to protest every Thursday for the next six months, is what motivated her to come to the drive-in, even after the mass repatriation efforts had ceased.
Daily Maverick asked whether she had been threatened during the post-march looting, but she declined to answer, saying that she just wanted to go home.
Inside the drive-in, groups of men stood in single file, waiting for police officers to tell them to board the buses that would transport them to Musina.
Speaking at the site last Wednesday, eThekwini Mayor Vusumuzi Cyril Xaba said buses had already been arranged to transport the remaining migrants to the Beitbridge processing centre before leaving South Africa.
On Monday, 6 July, Gift of the Givers reported in a Facebook post that “following an urgent request from Metro Police, our teams, in partnership with the Food Aid Foundation South Africa (Fafsa), provided hot meals and juice to approximately 150 men, women, and children who had gone without food” at the drive-in.
“Women also received hygiene packs to help meet their immediate needs. With no proper shelter, ablution facilities, or access to basic necessities, humanitarian support remains critical as they await assistance to return home,”Gift of the Givers said. DM
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