The Gruesome Sharpeville Massacre

The Gruesome Sharpeville Massacre The Sharpeville massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, outside the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville, in the then Transvaal. After a day of demonstrations against pass laws, a crowd of about 7,000 protesters went to the police station. The apartheid police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69 people and injuring 180 others, including 19 children. Various sources maintain that the shooting started when the crowd started advancing toward the fence around the police station. Many were shot in the back as they fled the scene. White colonial governments since the eighteenth century had enacted measures to restrict the flow of black South Africans into cities. Pass laws intended to control and direct their movement and employment were updated in the 1950s. Under the apartheid National Party government, black residents in urban districts were subject to influx control measures. Individuals over sixteen were required to carry passbooks, which contained an identity card, employment and influx authorisation from a labour bureau, name of employer and address, and details of personal history. Furthermore, a new police station was created, from which the police were energetic to check passes, deporting “illegal” residents, and raiding prohibited shebeens. Sharpeville was a small township about 56 kilometres south of Johannesburg, in the harsh industrial complex around Vereeniging. It was first built in 1943 to replace T