Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi enjoyed strong support in hostels across Durban and in Umlazi, where residents honoured the founding leader of the IFP with blockades, marches, songs, speeches and the occasional gunshot.

Tensions were running high in Durban on Sunday afternoon, 10 September, when a group of IFP supporters and hostel dwellers blockaded the Mangosuthu Highway , with some motorists reporting they were told by marchers that the highway would be closed to traffic until the IFP's founding leader had been buried. There were sporadic clashes between the marchers and motorists, joined by the occasional discharge of firearms.

Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi (95) died in the early hours of Saturday, 9 September. A "category 1" special official funeral, the state's highest honour, will be held on Saturday, and thousands are expected to attend the event at Buthelezi's homestead near the Ulundi town.

In 2007, eThekwini Municipality had to halt its plans to change the name of the Mangosuthu Highway to Griffiths Mxenge Highway - named after the anti-apartheid lawyer who was killed by a police hit squad - when hostel dwellers and IFP supporters blockaded it, protesting furiously that the name could not change.

As the Sunday blockade by IFP and hostel dwellers was under way, further along the highway in Umlazi, South Africa's second-largest township after Soweto, Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) students supporting the IFP-aligned South African Democratic Students Movement were...