Remains of 42 anti-apartheid fighters returned to SAfrica

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Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP

The remains of 42 anti-apartheid activists who died in exile in Zambia and Zimbabwe more than 30 years ago, were returned to South Africa Wednesday, kicking off a government drive to bring freedom fighters home.

The South African government says it wants to repatriate the remains of activists who fought white minority rule from abroad to honour their part in the struggle that led to the end of apartheid in 1994.

More than 1,000 anti-apartheid activists died in exile in countries in Africa, for example in Angola and Tanzania, but also in Cuba and Europe, Obed Bapela, an international relations officer for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party told the eNCA broadcaster.

Brigadier General Retired Lulu Siwisa (C), a former combatant with the Azania People's Liberation Army (APLA), carries a box with one among the total of 16 exhumed bodies during a hand over ceremony of exhumed human remains from Zimbabwe to South Africa of the 16 due for repatriation to South Africa, at the Museum of Human Sciences in Harare, on September 25, 2024. (AFP)

"There are plans to also repatriate from other parts of the continent," South African Defence Minster Angie Motshekga said at a ceremony at a military base near Pretoria to welcome the remains.

The remains had been handed over to South African officials in Harare and Lusaka earlier in the day.

The exile of South African anti-apartheid fighters was accelerated by the apartheid government's banning in 1960 of parties including the ANC and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).

This week, the South African government said that Wednesday's repatriations from neighbouring Zimbabwe and Zambia were the launch of a process to speed up the return of liberation fighters through a "country-to-country model".

In the past repatriations were on an individual basis, usually at the request of families, it said.

The remains returned from Zimbabwe Wednesday included those of PAC leader John Nyathi Pokela who was given a state funeral in that country following his death in Harare in 1985.

This photo taken on September 25, 2024 shows a portrait of South African anti-apartheid activist and statesman Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), Nobel Peace Prize laureate of 1993, next to other photographs on a wall of the committee meeting room at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway. The 2024 Nobel Prize announcements will take place from October 7-14. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo on October 11. (AFP)

Pokela was among the ANC leaders who broke away in 1959 to create the PAC. He spent 13 years in jail on Robben Island -- the prison off Cape Town that held anti-apartheid leaders including Nelson Mandela -- and went into exile on his release.

South Africa's rural development and land reform minister Mzwanele Nyhontso said at the handover in Harare that the repatriations were a significant step towards bringing healing and closure.