A shop owner said looters "stormed his shop" and even took an ATM machine during the unrest.

Ransacked shelves and discarded packaging were all that remained inside several shops near the port city of Durban Wednesday after looting during protests demanding that undocumented foreign nationals leave South Africa.

South African police said Wednesday that nationwide anti-immigration protests held the previous day were "mostly peaceful", despite isolated incidents of looting and criminal activity.

Anti-immigrant protesters in South Africa took the streets on Tuesday - the unofficial deadline set by citizen-led groups for undocumented foreigners to leave the country.