Sharpeville massacre, 66 years on: Families still wait for justice
More than six decades after police opened fire on protesters, survivors and relatives are taking their fight to court.
Sharpeville, South Africa – 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.
“I’ll go run to him,” Mathinye recalled thinking. “He will pick me up like daddies always do with their beloved daughters.”
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.
The survivors’ age has added urgency. Many of those directly affected by the massacre are now elderly, and some who spent decades seeking redress have died without seeing the matter resolved.