Protesters flee after police opened fire on a peaceful crowd in Sharpeville on 21 March 1960. At least 91 people were killed and 238 injured. Photograph: Ian Berry/c/o Atlas Gallery View image in fullscreen Protesters flee after police opened fire on a peaceful crowd in Sharpeville on 21 March 1960. At least 91 people were killed and 238 injured. Photograph: Ian Berry/c/o Atlas Gallery South Africa ‘We continue to suffer’: victims of apartheid-era Sharpeville massacre demand compensation Claim relating to 1960 attack on hundreds of protesters part of wave of litigation over apartheid crimes in South Africa
Prefer the Guardian on Google The day dawned brightly on 21 March 1960, as residents of the South African township of Sharpeville gathered to protest against pass laws, which forced “Black, Indian and Coloured” South Africans to carry documents at all times specifying where they were allowed to be.
Abraham Mofokeng joined the march, one of dozens organised nationwide by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), a breakaway group from the African National Congress (ANC). “The weather was very nice, the sun was out. You could not have suspected that the day would go so horribly,” said Mofokeng, who was then a 20-year-old factory worker.
View image in fullscreen Abraham Mofokeng, who was shot in the foot and back during the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960. Photograph: Rachel Savage/The Guardian Mofokeng, now 86, was among the thousands gathered peacefully outside the police station in Sharpeville, which is about 40 miles south of Johannesburg in a heavily industrialised region known as the Vaal Triangle.
The crowd was singing, he said, when officers opened fire without warning. At least 91 people were killed and 238 injured , in what became known as the Sharpeville massacre.
As Mofokeng fled, a bullet grazed the inside of his right foot, ripping his shoe off. A woman fell to the ground before him; he jumped over her and kept running. Only later, when he noticed blood running down his legs, did he realise he had been shot in the back, where a bullet remains lodged in his spine.
Mofokeng is among three claimants suing the South African government, in a case filed on Thursday, for compensation for the massacre. If the case is successful, dozens more could file claims.
The case is part of a wave of litigation demanding justice for apartheid-era crimes , amid widespread disillusionment with ANC-led governments that have failed to rectify South Africa’s huge racial inequality and poverty since the end of apartheid over three decades ago.
View image in fullscreen Dead and wounded South Africans lie outside the Sharpeville police station. Photograph: PN2 In January 2025, 25 survivors and relatives of victims of apartheid state violence sued South Africa’s government for failing to prosecute cases referred to it by the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). That May, the president, Cyril Ramaphosa, announced a judicial inquiry into potential political interference, which is still ongoing.
Spokespeople for South Africa’s justice department did not respond to a request for comment on the Sharpeville compensation case.
In the immediate aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, police claimed protesters had been throwing rocks at them. “I don’t know how many we shot,” said Col J Pienaar, the local police commander, according to a story published by the Guardian the following day. “It all started when hordes of natives surroun…