South Africa Confronts Unfinished Business from the Apartheid Era
More than three decades after the end of apartheid, families of victims of some of the worst crimes in South Africa's past are still fighting for justice. As survivors and perpetrators grow older, a new wave of legal efforts seeks truth, accountability, and reparations before it's too late.
Decades After Apartheid, South Africans Seek Justice for Crimes of the Past
October 17, 2026 7:00 AM ET
Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday
By Kate Bartlett
Apartheid justice cases South Africa
A mass funeral is held in Sharpeville, South Africa, on March 30, 1960, for 69 people killed by police during an anti-apartheid protest. More than six decades later, victims' families are renewing their fight for justice.
AP
Paulina Mathinye gestures with anguish at the rows of garbage-strewn graves, overrun with weeds, in the cemetery where her father is buried.
"Look at that, where they sleep," she says of the dozens of graves. “It’s like a testament to the history of this country, and the pain that people have suffered."