Soweto uprising anniversary: the picture that changed South Africa
South Africa has marked 40 years since at least 170 people, mainly children, were gunned down by the apartheid police after protesting the imposition of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools.
The event was marked by memorials around the country and an official ceremony at Soweto’s principal football stadium, addressed by President Jacob Zuma.
His speech was sparsely attended in a stark indication of the faith South Africans are losing in the ruling African National Congress government, which has been in power since Nelson Mandela was voted into office in 1994.
The party faces a bruising times at local elections in less than two months following a series of corruption and mismanagement scandals in which Mr Zuma has been involved.
An estimated 20,000 students took part in the protests against Afrikaans as the language of instruction, which began on the morning on June 16, 1976.
The students, most of whom were in their school uniforms, carried placards reading: "Afrikaans stinks", "To hell with Afrikaans" and "Afrikaans needs to be abolished".
Dan Montsitsi, a student leader of the uprising, said the maiden Soweto march had been planned for months.
"We were amazed with the number of students that we had been able to put in the streets," he told AFP.
He added that the shooting started after police released a dog into the crowd, which was killed.
"The police were very angry obviously and they decided they would use teargas,” he said. “(Soon after) they started to shoot."
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is widely expected to take over from Mr Zuma, placed a wreath at the memorial to Hector Pieterson, who was killed aged 13.
The aftermath of his shooting was captured in black and white by local photographer Sam Nzima and beamed around the world. It was credited with helping to raise pressure and bring about trade blockades on the apartheid regime that led to its downfall.
It also gave rise to one of the enduring mysteries of the era: the disappearance of 18-year-old Mbuyisa Makhubo, who carried the gravely-injured Hector away from the protests as his sobbing sister ran beside them.
Hector Pieterson could not be saved and, after harassment by the apartheid police, Mr Makhubo said goodbye to his family and fled over the border to Botswana. He wrote to his family but after five months the letters dried up and he was never heard from again.
Reports surfaced in 2013 that he might be a man living in Canada under an assumed name, who had been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences. South Africa dispatched a team to conduct DNA tests on the man but the results proved “inconclusive” and the trail appears to have gone cold.
Speaking at Soweto’s Orlando stadium, a stone’s throw from where Pieterson died, Mr Zuma insisted the country was “a much better place than it was”.
He said his government ploughed the largest part of its budget into improving education, providing it free to the country’s poorest along with free meals and building new universities and further education colleges.
Nonetheless, South Africa languishes near the bottom of global league tables and more than a quarter of its 55m people are unemployed. Recent anti-government protests saw scores of school burned down and students have also vandalised and burned university property in protests at high fees.
“The struggle continues, we will never rest until we achieve a more equal society and prosperous society, and a society without poverty and unemployment,” Mr Zuma said.
“By denying the majority of the population quality education, the apartheid regime disadvantaged the country and the South African economy immensely.”
Seth Mazibuko, one of the organisers of the 1976 Soweto protest, disagreed.
"What has changed? Nothing has changed," he said. "When we were fighting, we were saying doors must be opened to all. Now these doors, when they open, they're closed for those who do not have money."
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