Sites declared to honour those who died at Sharpeville and on SS Mendi
The SA Heritage Resources Agency has declared three Sharpeville massacre sites and the SS Mendi memorial as national heritage sites. The three sites in Sharpeville are the police station, the Phelindaba Cemetery memorial garden and the graves of the 69 people massacred. The declarations were gazetted by the Department of Arts and Culture on Friday On March 21 1960‚ police opened fire on a peaceful march led by the Pan Africanist Congress in protest against pass laws. Marches were organised in Sharpeville in Gauteng‚ and Langa in Cape Town. The SS Mendi memorial at the University of Cape Town’s sports fields in Rosebank‚ Cape Town‚ is for South African soldiers lost on SS Mendi in 1917‚ a story long ignored. The SS Mendi troopship left Cape Town carrying 823 men of the 5th Battalion the South African Native Labour Corps. It sank when another ship rammed it‚ and 616 South Africans (607 of them black troops) and 30 crew drowned. "It is a reminder of the role played by black South Afric...
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