What began as a peaceful march from the Johannesburg CBD on Tuesday descended into chaos by late afternoon.
A group of marchers that this News24 journalist joined grew increasingly aggressive and hostile as they made their way to Yeoville,after about two hours of marching through the city centre,Braamfontein,Hillbrow and then Yeoville.
They were part of a nationwide anti-immigrant protest on 30 June,the date by which organisers had demanded undocumented foreign nationals to leave South Africa.

The owner of this backroom arrived from work to find that the marchers had turned his place upside down.
Bongekile Macupe/News24

The marchers removed the steel gate from this home to gain access.
Bongekile Macupe/News24

They broke the windscreen of one of the cars parked in the yard.
Bongekile Macupe/News24

The door of another house that the marchers broke into.
Bongekile Macupe/News24

The marchers broke windows at the second home they invaded in Yeoville.
Bongekile Macupe/News24
It was when the marchers arrived at a street in Yeoville that the situation spiralled out of control.
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This journalist witnessed them forcing open a steel gate to gain access to one of the homes. They claimed that people who had thrown stones at them had fled into the house.
READ | ‘South Africans must stay in their lane’: Mosikili on 30 June vigilantism
Once inside the yard,the marchers began breaking windows and looting items from the property.
They then moved on to the house opposite. There,too,windows were smashed – and,as News24 would later establish after speaking to the occupants,money was stolen.
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Victims of the ordeal recounted what happened.
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