Abraham Mofokeng still carries the wounds of the bloody suppression of a protest in South Africa 66 years ago. In what became known as the Sharpeville massacre, police infamously opened fire on thousands of peaceful demonstrators. A bullet is still lodged in Mofokeng's spine, and he has a gentle limp from a gunshot to the leg.
"We weren't seen as people," the 86-year-old tells the BBC as he explains the reasons he joined the demonstration on 21 March 1960 against the repressive laws of the white-minority government. "All you were good for was working.
You couldn't question them, you were supposed to just do as you're told." The massacre at Sharpeville, which he survived, exposed to the world the violence of the racist apartheid system – yet thanks to an indemnity law passed a year after the killings, none of the perpetrators were ever prosecuted. Mofokeng is now part of a legal case set to be announced on Thursday that will seek to overturn this law.
At least 69 protesters were shot dead by police on that day in 1960, becoming a pivotal event in the history of the anti-apartheid movement. Though Sharpeville may be a place name rich in historical resonance, it scarcely looks like a site that symbolises the struggle: the township is slowly crumbling. The once tarred roads of this area south of Johannesburg are returning to dirt.
Many of the houses are still the small, brown-faced brick homes built under the apartheid-era government. The earth is dry and barren – heaps of rubbish are piling up throughout the neighbourhood. While the legalised system of racism was buried in 1994 when the country held its first democratic election and elected Nelson Mandela as president, its scars remain.