Police Action Caused Devastating Consequences

Whatever doubts there may be of the sequence of events in those fateful minutes, there can be no argument over the devastating consequences of the action of the police on 21 March 1960 in Sharpeville. Sixty-nine people were killed, including eight women and 10 children, and 180 wounded including 31 women and 19 children.

According to medical evidence the police continued firing after the people began to flee, for while 30 shots had entered the wounded or killed from the front of their bodies no less than 155 bullets had entered the bodies of the injured and killed from their backs. All this happened in 40 seconds, when 705 rounds were fired from revolvers and sten guns. But whatever weapons were used the massacre was horrible.

Visiting the wounded the next day in Baragwaneth Hospital near Johannesburg, I discovered youngsters, women and elderly men among the injured. These people could not be described as agitators by any stretch of the imagination. For the most part they were ordinary citizens who had merely gone to the Sharpeville Police Station to see what was going on. Talking with the wounded I found that everyone was stunned and mystified by what had taken place. They had certainly not expected that anything like this would happen. All agreed that there was no provocation for such savage action by the police. Indeed, they insisted that the political organizers who had called for the demonstration had constantly insisted that there should be no violence or fighting.