DURBAN, June 30 — Workers stayed home, shops were shut, and buses sat idle across South Africa on Tuesday, as fears mounted that planned anti-immigrant marches would descend into violence.
Many foreigners from African countries avoided coming to work, and thousands had already fled ahead of Tuesday's deadline — set by the demonstrators — for all undocumented migrants to leave.
Most have interpreted the deadline as a physical threat. Xenophobic protests in South Africa have in the past led to violence against immigrants and their property, with little distinction made between those who entered legally or not.
Police and military in the streets
Witnesses have said that landlords in the main city of Johannesburg and the port city of Durban were evicting foreign tenants for fear of their buildings being vandalised.
"All these people, they were chased out by their landlords. All these people are legal, they have documents," said Mabako Majole, a leader of the Congolese community, next to a crowd of 100 people sleeping on the street in downtown Durban.
The police and military were deployed to the streets to try to keep order during the marches in several cities, which are expected to attract many thousands of mostly poor or unemployed South Africans.
"The state has the duty and obligation to ensure that those who are demonstrating do so peacefully," Deputy National Commissioner for Policing Tebello Mosikili told a news conference late on Monday.
The latest anti-immigrant sentiment, and a failure by police so far to protect victims of attacks, have tarnished South Africa's post-Mandela reputation as a human rights defender, and strained its relations with the rest of the continent.
Statements by politicians have also endorsed the marchers' concerns, even while they condemned thuggishness.
"South Africans' ... deep concerns about illegal immigration ... are real, and they deserve to be heard.
"But the right to protest ... does not allow people to threaten or intimidate others, or to engage in acts of vandalism or violence," President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement on Monday.
