A research report uncovers the historical injustice meted out to Indian-origin subsistence fishers in South Africa who have to deal with the restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, the South African government declared COVID-19 a national disaster under the Disaster Management Act No. 57 of 2002. This introduced, overnight, regulations that prescribed the activities regarded as ‘essential’ to society. These lockdown regulations set in motion a series of administrative reactions that have revealed the deep-seated and stubborn inequalities in South Africa and the underbelly of the post-apartheid state. The impacts of these regulations were devastating for a specific groups of subsistence fishers from Durban in the province of KwaZulu Natal (KZN), along the eastern seaboard.