Foreign national beaten to death by crowd of about 50 in Durban CBD, police say
A foreign national was beaten to death by a crowd of about 50 people in central Durban on Thursday morning, police said. A murder case has been opened, and the motive is not yet known.
What police said
KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda described what is known so far, as quoted by TimesLIVE.
Two males reportedly pulled away from the group and approached a man on the roadside. It is alleged the victim was assaulted by a group of about 50 people and was declared dead at the scene.
Police are following several leads to identify suspects, TimesLIVE reported. Netshiunda told the BBC that police could not speculate on the motive and would share more once it was verified. The man has not been named.
Eyewitness account
A security guard, who asked not to be named, told GroundUp that the group was targeting immigrants. He said the man was probably walking to work at about 7am when he was spotted and attacked.
The guard said shop owners and residents had been terrorised for weeks by roaming vigilantes. He said police and metro officers had done little to intervene, GroundUp reported. When GroundUp visited the scene, police and soldiers were present.
Other incidents in Durban
On Thursday morning, protesters armed with sticks and knobkerries allegedly stormed a visa and permit office in Morningside, TimesLIVE reported. Private security said shots were fired before police arrived and the group dispersed.
On Wednesday, a Ugandan man was assaulted by a mob in Durban, according to GroundUp.
| Date | Incident (as reported) |
|---|---|
| 28 Sept | Home Affairs directive on asylum seekers, later withdrawn on 9 Oct (GroundUp) |
| 21 Oct | Ugandan man assaulted by a mob in Durban (GroundUp) |
| 22 Oct, morning | Visa and permit office in Morningside stormed (TimesLIVE) |
| 22 Oct, about 7am | Foreign national beaten to death in the CBD (police, GroundUp) |
A wider wave of protests
The killing follows a wave of protests against immigrants this year, some of them violent, the BBC reported. One group behind the protests, March and March, had set a deadline of 30 June for undocumented migrants to leave South Africa.
