Violent anti-migrant protests erupt in South Africa over asylum ruling

Anti-migrant demonstrations in South Africa turned violent on Thursday, with authorities saying the unrest was fuelled by disinformation surrounding a court decision on asylum seekers. Clashes broke out in Johannesburg's Soweto township and the port city of Durban, resulting in roughly two dozen vehicles being set on fire and foreign-owned businesses closing down, according to police.

The disturbances followed protests calling for refugee centres to halt the processing of asylum applications. Acting National Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Puleng Dimpane said 10 vehicles were burned in Johannesburg and 14 in Durban, where three people were taken into custody.

In Soweto, witnesses reported seeing residents removing goods from a shop said to belong to a Somali national, who was then driven away by the crowd before police arrived and dispersed them. In Durban, vehicles were set alight in the city centre and foreign-run shops were looted, with police firing rubber bullets to break up crowds after a business owned by foreign nationals was reportedly torched.

The demonstrators are opposed to a Constitutional Court ruling issued in July that eliminates several procedural obstacles for asylum seekers, including requirements related to irregular entry, missing transit visas, or missed reporting deadlines.

On the same day, the government's Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration convened an emergency meeting to address overcrowding at asylum offices following the ruling's implementation. The committee had previously stated that all its offices were struggling to cope with the surge in applications.