11 Days of Chaos: The Truth Behind the Home Affairs Directive
On 9 October 2026, the Department of Home Affairs withdrew its asylum directive. The Home Affairs directive, issued by the Director-General’s office on 28 September, told refugee offices to accept asylum applications from anyone who asks, including people who entered South Africa illegally. Within days, thousands queued outside refugee offices, March and March blocked the Durban refugee centre, and on 8 October cars burned in Soweto and Durban. The department says no minister or other political office-bearer knew about the directive, and that nobody could have foreseen its consequences. On 5 October, its own spokesperson said on 702 that the numbers were going to overwhelm the department.
A Home Affairs directive that lasted 11 days
On Friday 9 October 2026, the Department of Home Affairs announced that its Director-General had withdrawn a directive his office issued on 28 September. The directive told all refugee reception offices to accept asylum applications from anyone who presents themselves, however they entered the country.
The department described the directive as a purely operational attempt to implement a Constitutional Court order. It also said the Director-General’s office acted without reference to, or the knowledge of, the Minister of Home Affairs or any other political office-bearer. The minister is Leon Schreiber of the DA. According to the department, crowds overwhelmed refugee offices within a matter of days, officials faced risk, and serious threats to public safety and order emerged.
“…the attempt to practically implement the judgement immediately led to serious consequences that could not have been foreseen in the Court order.”
Department of Home Affairs media statement, 9 October 2026
The department said it will embark on a fresh process to find an operationally appropriate way to comply with the court’s order. It gave no date.
Why it took until October
The Constitutional Court ruled on 7 July 2026, in a case brought by the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town and Lawyers for Human Rights. However, for more than 2 months, nothing changed at the refugee offices. The protests followed the directive, not the ruling.
The Sowetan reported that Thulani Mavuso signed the directive as acting Director-General. Most people only heard about it on Monday 5 October, when Mavuso, who is also the department’s spokesperson and Deputy Director-General for Operations, spoke about it on 702.
“The biggest challenge I want to raise around this is that we are going to be overwhelmed by the numbers.”
Thulani Mavuso, Home Affairs, on 702, as quoted by the Sowetan, 7 October 2026
In Durban, GroundUp reported, it was the first time in about 6 years that new applicants could apply. On Tuesday 6 October, IOL reported thousands of asylum seekers queuing outside the Durban refugee centre. By Wednesday, March and March members had blocked the entrance. That night, the government’s Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration held an emergency meeting. On Thursday, cars were burning in Soweto and Durban.
| Date | What happened | Source |
| 7 July | Constitutional Court rules in the Scalabrini matter | Constitutional Court; IOL |
| 28 September | Directive issued by the Director-General’s office | Home Affairs statement |
| 5 October | Mavuso discusses the directive on 702 | Briefly News; Sowetan |
| 6 October | Thousands queue at the Durban refugee centre | IOL |
| 7 October | March and March blocks the entrance; IMC emergency meeting that night | IOL; Newzroom Afrika |
| 8 October | Vehicles torched in Soweto and Durban | SAPS |
| 9 October | Directive withdrawn | Home Affairs statement |
Why Home Affairs took more than 2 months to act on the ruling, the department has not explained. It has said only that it opposed the case but is bound to comply.
What the court actually ordered
Under the old rules, Home Affairs could block a person who entered South Africa illegally, or who did not report to a refugee office within 5 days, from applying for asylum at all. The Constitutional Court found that unconstitutional. As a result, anyone who asks for asylum may now apply, and Home Affairs must hear the claim.
The ruling decides who may apply. It says nothing about who gets to stay. Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, of the ANC, who chairs the migration committee, said applications that are “fraudulent, abusive, unfounded or do not meet the requirements of the Refugees Act” will still be rejected, that Home Affairs can still deport people who do not qualify, and that refugees do not get the vote.
On social media, however, people presented the ruling as an amnesty, with claims that foreign nationals would receive citizenship and Sassa grants. Home Affairs called the citizenship claim “categorically false” and has referred what it describes as a coordinated disinformation campaign to the Electoral Commission, ahead of the local government elections on 4 November 2026.
Soweto
On Thursday 8 October, residents in Orlando, Soweto, marched to the Home Affairs office to object to the ruling and to demand that police check the papers of foreign nationals running businesses. Briefly News reported that the office closed early over safety concerns, after which the crowd moved to nearby spaza shops.
A Newzroom Afrika reporter broadcasting live from the main road next to Vilakazi Street, a short walk from the Hector Pieterson memorial, said community leaders went from shop to shop telling owners to leave, and at first told people the stock must not be looted. The 2 groups then threw stones at each other, someone fired shots, and people set cars alight. Reuters reporters saw residents carrying groceries out of a shop they said belonged to a Somali national.
Johannesburg Metro Police spokesperson Xolani Fihla said the city regards the events as criminal activity. Lungile Yende, spokesperson for a group calling itself Soweto Uprising 2026, told EWN: “This is not looting. We want them to go out so that South Africans can take over this place.”
That evening, Acting National Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Puleng Dimpane said protesters burned 10 vehicles in Soweto and 14 in Durban. Dimpane said police had not yet arrested anyone in Gauteng and that police had no reports of injuries there. An SABC reporter on the scene reported 1 arrest after looters hit a shop.
The claims from Soweto
Several claims from Orlando West remain unverified, so this article attributes each one to the person or outlet that made it.
Gunfire. Orlando West resident Tshepo Mposula told the Sowetan that residents arrived peacefully and were met with gunfire. A community leader speaking to Newzroom Afrika said a shop owner produced a firearm and started shooting, and that traffic officers then shot back. Community leaders described the owners of that shop as Pakistani nationals. Asked whether gunfire sparked the violence, Gauteng police said they could not confirm it unless a complainant came forward.
The metro police. A community leader told Newzroom Afrika that when shop owners refused to open for the metro police, the metro police said they would allow the crowd to remove the stock. This is a claim against the JMPD, whose own spokesperson described the events as criminal activity. The JMPD had not published a response to this specific claim at the time of writing.
The certificate. The same leader said a health certificate that residents took from one of the shops carried the name of an ANC councillor, and that councillors are not entitled to issue such certificates. Nobody has named the councillor.
Durban
In Durban, a march that began at the refugee reception centre on Che Guevara Road ended with protesters setting fire to a scrapyard, reportedly owned by a foreign national, and looting shops in the city centre. Police said protesters set at least 14 vehicles alight, and fire partly burned a guest house and a warehouse. GroundUp reported a shooting near Dr Pixley KaSeme Street at about 4pm that left 1 person in hospital.
Briefly News and Inside Politics, citing reports on social media, reported that foreign nationals shot dead a South African man. Neither outlet named a witness, and police have not confirmed a death.
KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda said foreign nationals allegedly assaulted a South African protester and broke his leg. Police arrested 3 foreign nationals for that assault. They also said they were investigating claims that someone fired shots at protesters. On the morning of 9 October, he told SABC that police had not arrested anyone for public violence or any other crime, and that the only arrests were the 3 foreign nationals.
It did not stop there
In Gqeberha on 8 October, SABC reported that about 30 protesters chased asylum seekers away from the refugee office before police dispersed them with stun grenades. By the next morning the queues had returned.
In Marabastad, Pretoria, March and March supporters gathered outside Home Affairs on 9 October. When news of the withdrawal reached them, one supporter told SABC that, according to what he had read on social media, it was as if the Constitutional Court ruling itself had been withdrawn. It had not. In fact, Home Affairs withdrew only the directive, and the ruling still stands. Asylum seekers in the same queue told SABC they had been in South Africa for 6 to 10 years without papers, and had applied before, only for Home Affairs to reject them.
What the government says
Government spokesperson William Baloyi told Reuters that people deliberately spreading false information about the ruling triggered the violence. At its briefing on 8 October, the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration went further, saying the directive, together with the Constitutional Court judgment, had unintended consequences due to misunderstanding and operational difficulties, and confirming that refugee offices were overwhelmed.
Asked what the government did in the 3 months after the July ruling, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the Home Affairs Director-General had written to the Gauteng Judge President about contradictory judgments, and that a court panel will hear the matter on 29 October.
“We didn’t announce it because we didn’t feel we have to announce it… So we have not been sitting twiddling our thumbs.”
Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, Minister in the Presidency, IMC on Migration briefing, 8 October 2026 (SABC News)
In addition, Ntshavheni said that if the Constitution does not protect South Africans, the country must discuss amending it through the national dialogue. Kubayi said refugee reception offices will move from inland cities to the borders in phases from December.
Who should have stopped the Home Affairs directive?
By the department’s own account, the Home Affairs directive that sent thousands of people to refugee offices across the country went out without any minister knowing about it, and the department pulled it back only after vehicles had burned in 2 cities. The department says nobody could have foreseen the consequences. Its own spokesperson said on radio 4 days earlier that the numbers would overwhelm the department.
The people who looted shops and set vehicles alight are responsible for what they did, and by the police’s own account they had not arrested anyone for the burned vehicles by the morning of 9 October. Meanwhile, those who spread false claims about the ruling share the blame. But the government had from July to explain what the ruling means. Before the court hears the matter on 29 October, the government owes South Africans an answer to a simple question about the Home Affairs directive: who should have stopped it?
Sources
- Department of Home Affairs media statement, 9 October 2026
- SABC News: Acting National Police Commissioner briefing, Soweto, 8 October 2026
- SABC News: Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration briefing, 8 October 2026
- SABC News: reports from Durban, Marabastad and Gqeberha, 9 October 2026
- Newzroom Afrika live broadcast, Orlando West, 8 October 2026
- Reuters, 8 October 2026
- The Citizen, 9 October 2026
- Sowetan, 7 and 8 October 2026
- Briefly News, 5 and 8 October 2026
- Inside Politics, 8 October 2026
- IOL, 7 July, 7 October and 8 October 2026
- TimesLIVE, 8 October 2026
- EWN, 8 October 2026
- eNCA, 8 October 2026
- GroundUp / Daily Maverick, 8 October 2026
