Three claimants, including an 86-year-old survivor, have filed a lawsuit against South Africa's government seeking compensation for the Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1960, when police opened fire on a peaceful crowd, killing at least 91 people and injuring 238 others.
Abraham Mofokeng, who was 20 at the time and working in a factory, joined the march organised by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), a breakaway group from the African National Congress. The protest was against pass laws that forced "Black, Indian and Coloured" South Africans to carry documents specifying where they were allowed to be.
Mofokeng, now 86, was among thousands gathered peacefully outside the police station in Sharpeville, about 40 miles south of Johannesburg in the heavily industrialised Vaal Triangle. He recalled the crowd singing when officers opened fire without warning. As he fled, a bullet grazed his right foot, ripping off his shoe. A woman fell before him; he jumped over her and kept running. Only later, noticing blood on his legs, did he realise he had been shot in the back, where a bullet remains lodged in his spine.
Legal challenge to indemnity law
The case, filed on Thursday, 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 racial inequality and poverty since apartheid ended over three decades ago.
In January 2025, 25 survivors and relatives of apartheid-era state violence sued the government for failing to prosecute cases referred to it by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In May, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a judicial inquiry into potential political interference, which is still ongoing.
The claimants' legal team argues that a 1961 law, which indemnified the government and its agents for actions taken "in good faith" to suppress internal disorder, is unconstitutional. The law was made retroactive to the date of the massacre and remains in force.
Compensation sought by survivors
The claimants seek compensation of about 500,000 rand (£23,000) each, said Daniel Leader, a partner with UK law firm Leigh Day, which advises the South African legal team led by Lawyers For Human Rights, an NGO.
Mofokeng received 30,000 rand as a one-off payment after the TRC concluded in 2003, which had recommended annual reparations of about 20,000 rand for six years. "We continued to suffer," he said, adding that he is struggling and his health is not up to standard.
The other two test claimants were children when their fathers were killed. Paulina Mathinye was five when her father Samson was shot. Her mother struggled to raise five children on a domestic worker's wages, and Mathinye had to leave education at 17 to find work, missing her dream of becoming a teacher.
Vincent Thamae, a PAC member who supports the victims and their families, said compensation should include the land lost, the economy they were excluded from, and how they have been treated in the new democracy.
