Marikana victims offered R1.17bn in damages
Police Minister Nathi Nhleko says the government will pay compensation to victims of a 2012 police shooting that left 34 mineworkers dead and dozens wounded
The government said on Wednesday that it was offering to pay R1.17bn in compensation to victims of a 2012 police shooting at Marikana that left 34 mineworkers dead and dozens wounded. "The R1.17bn presented here is an amount linked to a certain number of individuals’ loss of support, injuries and, of course, fatalities," Police Minister Nathi Nhleko told MPs. The amount will cover 652 claims made by families who lost relatives, miners who were injured and those who were unlawfully arrested. The 34 miners were gunned down after police were deployed to break up a wildcat strike that had turned violent at the Lonmin-owned Marikana platinum mine northwest of Johannesburg in August 2012. It was the worst police violence in SA since the end of apartheid in 1994. An official inquiry established by President Jacob Zuma put much of the blame for the massacre on police tactics used to disperse the strikers, but it did not go as far as recommending compensation. In 2016, Zuma announced that th...
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