South Africa: evacuation of foreigners taking refuge in a church for fear of xenophobic attacks

On Thursday, May 21, the South African authorities evacuated nearly 400 foreign nationals taking refuge in a religious center in Durban. They had settled there out of fear of increasingly virulent anti-migrant groups. In total, some 400 people were taken to a government refugee center. These tensions come six months before local elections and in a context of an increase in xenophobic discourse in South Africa.