Durban’s Che Guevara Road was the scene of chaos again on Wednesday following clashes between foreigners and March and March members.Hundreds of foreigners queued outside the home affairs refugee office in Berea on Tuesday after a court ruling that opened access to the asylum application process. The asylum application process descended into chaos on Wednesday when protesters, including members of March and March, the Labour Law Enforcement and other groups, gathered outside the department of home affairs offices on Che Guevara Road in Berea, Durban, blocking the entrance and preventing people from entering or leaving the premises. Home affairs have instructed refugee reception offices to receive applications in person from people who want to apply for asylum.The directive follows a Constitutional Court judgment in July which confirmed that provisions of the Refugees Act creating barriers for people who entered South Africa irregularly or failed to apply within prescribed timeframes were unconstitutional and invalid.Police were deployed to the Home Affairs Refugee office in Berea on Tuesday and Wednesday after tensions flare between March and March and asylum seekers. This comes after a court ruling that opened access to the asylum application process. 📹 @sandysndlovu pic.twitter.com/42iNmWoSjC— Yasantha Naidoo (@NaidooYasantha) October 7, 2026 However, the anti-migrant body took to the streets and disrupted the asylum application process by blocking the gate at the home affairs office preventing people from entering or leaving the premises.Police had to intervene and the applicants were asked to return on Wednesday. The asylum application process descended into chaos on Wednesday when protesters, including members of March and March, the Labour Law Enforcement and other groups, gathered outside the department of home affairs offices on Che Guevara Road in Berea, Durban, blocking the entrance and preventing people from entering or leaving the premises. But on Thursday, the protesters were back and the road leading to the centre was closed. Police carrying shields were deployed to the area to control the crowd wielding sjamboks, knobkerries and sticks.One protester said they were alerted to hundreds of foreigners along the road and came to the area to “restore order”.He said residents and businesses feared hundreds of refugees mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi and Rwanda, who had made the pavement outside the home affairs office their home from May to September, had returned. The asylum application process descended into chaos on Wednesday when protesters, including members of March and March, the Labour Law Enforcement and other groups, gathered outside the department of home affairs offices on Che Guevara Road in Berea, Durban, blocking the entrance and preventing people from entering or leaving the premises. Following agitation from March and March, home affairs officials removed about 400 people, after repeated attacks by March and March last month.Five buses carried more than 250 men, women and children and their belongings to the Lindela repatriation centre in Krugersdorp, Gauteng. Another group of about 200 people who chose not to be taken to Gauteng were moved to Stella Park in Glenwood, southwest of the Durban city centre, but were later dispersed to find shelter elsewhere. March and March founder Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma said the the asylum process was flawed because the system doesn’t have a way of tracking the “so-called asylum seekers”.“On top of that, there’s no vetting process that goes with these. We’re talking about military-aged men, not women. If you were saying you’re bringing into our country women and children, it’s way more understandable than bringing us men to come into our country, to live in our communities because we have to integrate according to the minister. “She says that we have to integrate. We’ve never been asked how are we coping to live in our communities. Decisions are made for us on our behalf and we’re not there to represent ourselves and have a voice. That is not a democracy.”The asylum application process descended into chaos on Wednesday when protesters, including members of March and March, the Labour Law Enforcement and other groups, gathered outside the department of home affairs offices on Che Guevara Road in Berea, Durban, blocking the entrance and preventing people from entering or leaving the premises. The surge highlights the growing pressure on home affairs to process applications while balancing the country’s immigration controls.One Ethiopian national standing in the queue said he came to South Africa in 2022.“The government hasn’t granted us asylum before. We’re suffering and then we have a problem because we are not registered.”He said he came to South Africa because of the fighting in his home country and he was hoping to finally get the proper documents from the South African government to continue living in South Africa as an asylum seeker. He said he was currently unemployed because he wasn’t able to get a job without documents. In the run-up to the June 30 anti-foreigner protests, scores of foreign nationals left their homes and businesses. While thousands were repatriated to their countries of origin, the documented refugees and asylum seekers have lived on the busy road outside the department of home affairs refugee office since May 22.A protest on September 3 descended into chaos, with police using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters during a tense confrontation with the migrants. At least three people were injured and one person was arrested.
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