A Ugandan man who was attacked by a mob of March and March supporters in Durban on Wednesday last week has described his brush with death from an Addington Hospital ward where he was recovering from his injuries.
In a video of the attack, shared widely on social media last week, the man is seen running before he is surrounded by protestors wielding an assortment of weapons. As he is attacked he runs towards two yellow bibbed officials, understood to be eThekwini Municipality peace officers. The officers are seen trying to intervene in the attack, but soon step back.
In a matter of 20 seconds, attackers are seen to land more than a dozen blows onto the man who stumbles to the tarmac and covers his head. As a police vehicle enters the frame, the attackers are seen to slowly disperse.
Initially, a voice note circulating on WhatsApp alleged that the man had died. But, Viewfinder confirmed that he was alive after engaging various immigrant community leaders in Durban. A leader in the Ugandan community, who asked that he be identified only as “Andrew”, agreed to facilitate an interview with the victim of the attack where he was recovering in hospital.
Andrew accompanied this journalist to Addington Hospital on Friday evening. There the 45-year-old victim was in bed, surrounded by friends and family. He asked, as well, to only be identified by his first name – “Simon” – for fear of further reprisal from anti-immigrant protesters.
He said that he was at work on Yusuf Dadoo Street in the Durban city centre on Wednesday afternoon when he heard the sounds of a nearby protest organised by March and March. Fearing a confrontation with the marchers, he decided to go home.
He walked down Yusuf Dadoo Street, when he noticed another group of marchers heading straight towards him. Some of them were carrying weapons and wearing masks and balaclavas, he said. He decided to make a run for it. When the group noticed him running, he said, they gave chase.
Simon’s eyes began to well up with tears when he got to this part of the story.
“He struggled to run away, [but] he thought he found a safe direction when he saw the police,” said Andrew, referring to the eThekwini peace officers who can be seen in the video.
Simon suffered a bloody puncture wound to his back which he believes was caused by a club with a nail driven through it. He said that he momentarily lost consciousness.
“I lost my phone, my wallet, my documents,” he said. He does not know how.
Andrew, who was present but escaped injury himself, drove Simon to King Dinizulu Hospital for emergency first aid and X-rays.
The attack on Andrew happened on Wednesday afternoon. Early the following morning another foreign national was beaten to death by a mob of fifty people in the Durban city centre, according to a police statement.
Police subsequently said that five men, aged between 19 and 46-years-old, had been taken in for questioning over the murder on Thursday and an attempted murder on Wednesday. The latter incident is understood to be the assault on Simon which was caught on video.
Viewfinder has previously reported that armed groups of March and March supporters have been accused in a string of targeted attacks on foreign nationals in Durban throughout 2026. More than 400 people, almost all documented refugees and asylum seekers, were displaced from their homes and camped on the pavement outside the Department of Home Affairs offices on Che Guevara Road in Durban.
In response to queries at the time, KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson, Colonel Robert Netshiunda said that police “are not aware of any xenophobic attacks at any part of the province.”
Asked this week over WhatsApp for clarification of this statement and whether the recent murder and attempted murder have changed the police’s outlook, Netshiunda did not respond.
The Siyafana Sonke Action Campaign, a civil society coalition that supports refugees in Durban, has logged incidents of violence against foreign nationals throughout 2026.
“Since May 2026, Durban has seen a steady escalation in the violence directed against foreign nationals by anti-migrant groups,” said Yeshelen Govender, of the Siyafana Sonke.
“A pattern is clearly identifiable: as anti-immigrant marches progress, small groups of masked and armed men bleed off and the supervising police detachments become stretched. These small groups stop people to conduct ‘document checks’ or interrogations in isiZulu. Failure to immediately prove a commanding grasp of the local language invariably results in a beating.”
March and March has consistently characterised itself as a non-violent movement and distanced itself from supporters who perpetrate acts of violence.
Sandile Dube, March and March’s spokesperson, was sent a query asking whether he had any comment on the acts of violence which had accompanied March and March events last week. He did not immediately respond.
This story also appeared in Daily Maverick.