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.

Landlords in the main city of Johannesburg and the port city of Durban were evicting ​foreign tenants for fear of their buildings being vandalised, witnesses said.

“All these people, they were chased out by their landlords,” Mabako Majole, a leader of the Congolese community, said next to a crowd of ​100 people sleeping on the street in downtown Durban.
“All these people are legal. They ​have documents.”

Police and the 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.