Decades After the Sharpeville Massacre, Families Still Fight for Justice and Accountability

A crowd gathers at the township of Sharpeville, south of Johannesburg, South Africa, March 21, 1960, a few hours before white police opened fire on them with bren-guns. They were demonstrating against the law requiring Africans to carry passes. Sixty Africans were killed and hundreds injured in the shooting.

Paulina Mathinye was five years old when her father left home for a meeting near the police station in Sharpeville, a township south of Johannesburg. She remembers waiting for him to return. “I’ll go run to him,” Mathinye recalled thinking. “He will pick me up like daddies always do with their beloved daughters.” He never did.

On March 21, 1960, Mathinye’s father joined other men from the community at a gathering protesting apartheid’s pass laws, which required Black South Africans to carry documents restricting where they could live and work. “There was a meeting here at the old police station, so he accompanies those fathers to the meeting. But then he never came back.”

Police opened fire on the protesters that day in what became known as the Sharpeville Massacre. Apartheid-era police records put the death toll at 69 and the number of injured at 180. Research published in 2024 using police records found that as many as 91 people may have been killed and 238 injured. The higher figures are also cited by lawyers representing Sharpeville survivors and families.

The massacre became a defining moment in South Africa’s struggle against apartheid. March 21 is now commemorated as Human Rights Day, and South Africa’s democratic Constitution was signed in Sharpeville in 1996. But for the families of those killed and injured, the consequences did not end that day. More than six decades later, survivors and relatives are seeking redress through the courts.

Lawyers for Human Rights has filed an application in the Gauteng High Court challenging the continued existence of the Indemnity Act 61 of 1961, an apartheid-era law that the applicants say prevented survivors and dependants of those killed from pursuing civil and criminal proceedings arising from the massacre.

The applicants are also seeking certification of a class action involving survivors who were shot and dependants of those killed. For Mathinye, the legal fight is inseparable from the life that followed her father’s death. He had been the family’s breadwinner. After he was killed, her mother worked as a domestic worker to support five children.

“We sometimes go to bed with empty stomach. We sometimes go to school and when we come back from school we find nothing to eat,” Mathinye said. There was no electricity, and sometimes her mother could not afford even a candle for the children to study. Mathinye wanted to become a teacher, but her family could not afford further studies.

Charne Tracey-Mamdoo, a lawyer in the Strategic Litigation Programme at Lawyers for Human Rights, told Al Jazeera that victims and families attempted to pursue claims soon after the massacre, but were barred by the Indemnity Act enacted by the apartheid government in 1961.

Lawyers for Human Rights is asking the Gauteng High Court to declare the Indemnity Act unconstitutional and invalid, and to certify a class action for survivors and dependants. More than 70 survivors and relatives have expressed support for or interest in the proposed litigation.

Ishmael Poho was six years old when his father left home for a community meeting on March 21 and never returned. It took his mother three days to find his body among bodies piled in vehicle garages at the station. Poho, now 72, believes his life would have been different if his father had survived.

For Mauleen Maine, whose uncle was killed at age 23, the struggle has spanned multiple generations. Her grandmother, parents, and now Maine herself at age 62 have continued the effort to seek justice and proper compensation, housing, and educational opportunities.

Vincent Thamae, a member of Voices of Sharpeville, argues that the impact extended to the entire township. Lawyers for Human Rights notes that while 51 Sharpeville survivors were formally awarded reparations through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, many families feel the democratic government has failed to fully address their grievances.

With survivors like Paulina Mathinye now 71 and Ishmael Poho 72, Lawyers for Human Rights emphasizes the urgency of moving the legal proceedings forward as families continue to ask why their fathers were shot more than six decades ago.