The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation strongly condemns the brutal killing of a man, alleged to have been a foreign national, who was beaten to death by a mob of approximately 50 people in the Durban Central Business District (CBD) yesterday morning.
The deceased was targeted on the corner of Dr Pixley kaSeme Street and Maud Mfusi Street after individuals splintered from a nearby protest march. This horrific act occurs amidst months of escalating, highly flammable anti-immigrant marches and rhetoric that have continually threatened to spill over into fatal vigilantism.
“We are deeply shaken by this senseless loss of life,” said the Foundation. “No grievance, structural economic anxiety, or political dissatisfaction can ever justify the barbaric act of mob justice. Scapegoating and targeting vulnerable individuals based on their nationality directly violates the core human rights values enshrined in our Constitution, and stands in stark opposition to the non-racial, just South Africa that Uncle Ahmed Kathrada and his generation spent their lives fighting to build.”
The Foundation notes that the South African Police Service (SAPS) has opened a murder case. We demand an urgent, thorough, and transparent investigation. It is critical that the perpetrators—and those inciting these violent crowds—are swiftly identified, arrested, and held fully accountable under the law.
We urge local communities, leadership, and civil society organizations to exercise maximum restraint, reject divisive and inflammatory anti-migrant rhetoric, and actively counter the spread of unverified information that threatens to spark wider retaliatory violence. South Africa cannot allow vigilantism and fear to replace the rule of law.
Media Enquiries:
The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation
Johannesburg, South Africa
www.kathradafoundation.org
