CRIMES OF APARTHEID: SOWETO STUDENT MASSACRE

South Africa commemorates 16 June as National Youth Day in remembrance of the school children massacred by the apartheid regime on this day 49 years ago.

The atrocity began on the morning of 16 June 1976, when over 20,000 students in Soweto township, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, took to the streets to protest against the apartheid regime's education policy - in particular, the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction.

The students attempted to march to Orlando Stadium for a rally to register their displeasure, but heavily armed police officers and soldiers confronted them. After a brief standoff, police fired teargas and live ammunition on the peaceful march, killing at least 176 students and injuring nearly a thousand. Some estimates of the death toll are even higher.

A government commission in 1980 concluded that 575 people had been k*lled and 3,907 wounded, but the official count still stands at 176 massacred.

One still painful aspect of the Soweto massacre is that, like many other apartheid-era atrocities, the perpetrators were never brought to justice. Many have since died peacefully in their sleep on their farms on land violently stolen from African people.

Nearly 50 years later, the question remains: will the children massacred on that cold morning for merely standing up against an oppressive regime ever get justice?