Durban riots (1949)

Overview

The Durban riots were a period of ethnic violence that occurred between 13 and 15 January 1949 in Durban, South Africa. The violence was directed primarily by black South Africans against Indian South Africans and is described as the second deadliest massacre during apartheid.

Thursday, 13 January 1949

The riots began on the evening of Thursday, 13 January 1949 at Victoria Street, in the heart of Durban's Indian commercial district. Black African assailants attacked individual Indian residents, stoned vehicles driven by Indians, and looted Indian-owned stores while chanting "Usuthu!". The violence that evening was initially confined mostly to property destruction and looting, and it subsided after several hours. A police detective present at the time recounted that there was an organised element to the riots within the Zulu community, with talk that "the time had come to rid the country of the Indians."

Friday, 14 January 1949

On Friday, African leaders from Cato Manor organised rioters drawn from workers' hostels and social networks including ingoma dancing troupes and boxing clubs. Taking advantage of slow police intervention, assailants attacked the Indian business area with improvised weapons, targeting both property and people. Multiple accounts describe European whites cheering on the African assailants and joining in the looting of Indian stores; one account cited in Donald L. Horowitz's book "The Deadly Ethnic Riot" describes European women urging on the attackers and dancing with them in the street.

By early evening, government troops blockaded the Indian district in central Durban, after which violence shifted to the suburban areas of Cato Manor, Clairwood, and Jacobs, where murder, arson, rape, and looting occurred. Contemporary reporting in the Indian Opinion newspaper described scenes of burning shops, a fatally stabbed shop owner, and a young man with severe head injuries among "hundreds of pathetic sites" witnessed in Cato Manor and other districts. Friday night marked the peak of the violence, when paraffin tins were hurled into Indian-owned buildings, killing entire families.

Saturday, 15 January 1949 and aftermath

By Saturday, military and police forces largely restored order in Durban, though limited violence occurred in Pietermaritzburg in the following days. In total, the riots resulted in 142 deaths, most of them Indian residents, and 1,087 injuries. Around 300 buildings were destroyed and 2,000 structures damaged. The riots produced approximately 40,000 Indian refugees and were followed by a wave of suicides among Indian residents, attributed to the disintegration of families, economic ruin, stress, humiliation, and racist discrimination.