Violent attacks at Durban anti-xenophobia march
Anti-xenophobia protestors gathered outside City Hall demanding answers after a march was stopped by riot police early on Wednesday.
TENSIONS were high and violence erupted outside Durban City Hall yesterday (Wednesday 8 April) after an anti-xenophobia march was cancelled by police just hours before it was due to commence.
Foreign nationals were forced to disperse from King Dinuzulu Park when riot police used water canons and rubber bullets to prevent them from continuing their march to demand an end to the current wave of xenophobic violence against foreign nationals.
Some regrouped outside City Hall were the protest was planned to end, demanding government do something to put an end to the violence.
Shouting slogans “Peace, Love, Africa Unite,” as well as, “We won’t go”, protesters waited in the hopes of handing over a memorandum to a City Hall official.
A group of toyi-toying locals gathered across from City Hall wielding sticks and chanting, “Phansi, They must go.”
A young foreigner, Alemayow Soreta, was taken up to City Hall with lacerations to his head and bleeding profusely after he was allegedly hit by locals in front of police.
Kapele Mutachi, spokesman for the Congolese Solidarity Campaign (one of the organisers of the march), said they had met with Metro Police and booked the march for 28 March but because the roads would be too busy over the Easter holidays, were asked to push it forward to Wednesday, 8 April.
“We just found out when we gathered that they (police) received a threat via sms saying that every foreigner on the streets of Durban would be killed. They did not discuss or listen to our grievances but used rubber bullets and water canons to stop us, the same police we were expecting to protect us in our peaceful march,” he said.
