eople were shot. We went there and found people lying all over the ground. But something amazing happened. There was a black cloud. For 15 minutes it rained heavily after the shooting. It washed all the blood … "
Ikabot Makiti's voice trails off into quiet sobs. The former student activist cannot forget the strewn corpses of men, women and children, or the mass burials in £15 coffins that followed. Half a century has passed but memories of the Sharpeville massacre still run deep.
Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the day that changed the course of South African history. When police opened fire on thousands of unarmed protesters, killing 69 and injuring about 180, they inadvertently provided a catalyst for decades of armed struggle and forced the rest of the world to confront the iniquity of apartheid. White minority rule finally collapsed in 1994. Two years later it was in Sharpeville that the country's first black president, Nelson Mandela, signed a new constitution.
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