Riots in Durban (1949)

                                                                            REPORT OF THE COMMISSION OF ENQUIRY INTO RIOTS IN DURBAN

                                ISSUED BY AUTHORITY, CAPE TIMES, 1949, ORIGINAL, SOFTCOVER, 22 PAGES,  22.4 CMS X 32.4 CMS, CONDITION: NEW.

The Durban riots were an anti-Indian riot that took place between 1315 January 1949, primarily by black South Africans targeting Indian South Africans in Durban. It was the second deadliest massacre during apartheid.

"Huddled under the flames of one of the burning shops were four Indian women and a dozen weeping children. The male owner was in a grotesque attitude on the front path, knifed in several places and dying. A younger [Indian] son staggered in the road with his head split open. This was one of the hundreds of pathetic sites that were witnessed in Cato and other districts of Durban."

The riots resulted in the massacre of mostly Indian people in which 142 people died and 1087 people were injured. 300 buildings were destroyed and 2000 structures were damaged. It also created 40,000 Indian refugees, followed by a wave of suicides among Indians, as a result of the disintegration of their families, economic failure, stress, humiliation and racist discrimination.