How many people were killed in the Soweto uprising?

The record gives several figures and none of them settles it. The official count for 16 June was 23, though South African History Online records contemporary estimates of at least 200; the Cillie Commission found 575 across a period running from 16 June 1976 to 28 February 1977, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's own finding says more than 575 students, and the South African Government's Youth Day page says approximately 700.

Was Hector Pieterson the first child shot on 16 June 1976?

The sources do not agree. South African History Online says the first student shot was 15-year old Hastings Ndlovu, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Transvaal profile, which spells the name Peterson, names him as the first of two pupils fatally wounded without mentioning Ndlovu, and the City of Johannesburg's account separates being shot first from dying first.

Is Youth Day the same as the International Day of the African Child?

No. Both fall on 16 June and both remember the 1976 Soweto uprising, but the Day of the African Child was instituted in 1991 by the OAU Assembly of Heads of State and Government and is marked across the continent.

Youth Day

Next celebratedWednesday, June 16, 2027

Police opened fire on Soweto schoolchildren marching against Afrikaans as a medium of instruction on 16 June 1976. South Africa marks the date each year as a paid public holiday.

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YEARLY DATEJune 16

OBSERVED INSouth Africa

CATEGORYFederal

ORIGIN

Enacted Law

FOUNDING ENTITY

Parliament of the Republic of South Africa

FIRST OBSERVED

1994

“Schedule 1 gives the day four words: Youth Day 16 June.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Parliament put the uprising on the national calendar.

Parliament of the Republic of South Africa named Youth Day in Schedule 1 of the Public Holidays Act 36 of 1994, among the twelve public holidays the Act sets out. The Act was assented to on 23 November 1994, published in Government Gazette No. 16136 on 7 December 1994, and came into operation on 1 January 1995.

Read the Act naming the dayvia South African Government

INTRO

A holiday that arrived a year late

Youth Day was observed before it was a holiday. South Africa marked 16 June in 1994, but the date was not yet a public holiday.

A year later, at the national Youth Day event at Ezakheni, President Nelson Mandela could report the gap closed in one line. "June 16, South Africa Youth Day, is a paid public holiday," he told the crowd. He called it the second South Africa Youth Day under conditions of democracy.

The date belongs to Soweto. Almost everything about the morning of 16 June 1976 is contested, including how many people were killed after the police opened fire on marching schoolchildren.

ORIGINS

Youth Day history

INTRODUCTION

In 1974 the Afrikaans Medium Decree ordered Black secondary schools to teach Mathematics, Social Sciences and Geography in Afrikaans. Punt Janson, then Deputy Minister of Bantu Education, was blunt about it: "I have not consulted the African people on the language issue and I'm not going to."

The order fell on a system already starved. South African History Online records R644 spent a year on each White student and R42 budgeted for each Black school child.

CHAPTER 01

Three days to organise a march

The Tswana School Board minutes of 20 January 1976 record the order: instruction on a 50-50 basis. On 11 June Andries Treurnicht, deputy minister of Bantu education, refused five Soweto schools permission to leave it. On 13 June the Naledi branch of the South African Students Movement resolved to protest.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission recorded that the Action Committee gave itself only three days, and kept the plan from parents and teachers.

CHAPTER 02

Seven in the morning at Orlando West

Pupils began marching at 07h00. The first reported clash came at 08h00, when police opened fire on two schoolboys running to catch up. By 09h00, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recorded, approximately 10 000 pupils had converged on Orlando West High School.

Student leaders appealed for calm, and police formed an arc in front of the crowd. A tear gas canister was thrown into the marchers, they answered with stones, and the police opened fire. Two pupils were fatally wounded: the Commission's Transvaal profile names thirteen-year-old Hector Zolile Peterson as the first, and never mentions Hastings Ndlovu, whom South African History Online calls the first student shot that day.

CHAPTER 03

The count, and the commissions

Official figures for 16 June put the dead at 23, and South African History Online records that some reports estimated at least 200. The South African Government's own Youth Day page puts the toll at approximately 700. The Cillie Commission counted 575, across terms of reference running from 16 June 1976 to 28 February 1977.

The Cillie report reached Parliament on 29 February 1980 and found that Bantu Education was not a cause of the riots. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 1998 report put the dead at more than 575 students. It also found that the earlier inquiry had failed to make findings against the police, creating a culture of impunity within the police force.

CHAPTER 04

The calendar the new Parliament wrote

Democracy arrived and the calendar had to be rewritten. Government Gazette No. 16136 carried the new Act, with Youth Day among the public holidays it listed. It also records which version the President put his name to: the Afrikaans text is the one he signed.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Afrikaans made a medium of instruction

The Afrikaans Medium Decree made it mandatory for Black secondary schools to teach Mathematics, Social Sciences and Geography in Afrikaans.

Police open fire at Orlando West

Pupils began marching at 07h00 and police opened fire outside Orlando West High School later that morning.

Cillie Commission reports to Parliament

The commission's report, running over 1 000 pages, was tabled in Parliament on 29 February 1980.

First Youth Day under the Act

16 June 1995 was the first Youth Day for which the Public Holidays Act 36 of 1994 was in force.

Hector Pieterson Museum opens in Soweto

The first museum in Soweto opened in Orlando West on 16 June 2002.

The state honours the photographer

Sam Nzima, the photographer who was at Orlando West that morning, received the National Order of Ikhamanga in bronze on 27 April 2011.

Don't taunt them, don't do anything to them. Be cool and calm. We are not fighting.

Tsietsi MashininiStudent leader, Morris Isaacson School

On arrival at the clinic the doctor named Wilson said he was sorry there was nothing he can do because he was already deceased.

Antoinette SitholeHector Pieterson's sister, testifying to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about Youth Day

The same statute rewrote the old holiday definition

Schedule 2 of the Public Holidays Act 36 of 1994 substituted the definition of 'public holiday' in the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 3 of 1983. The definition it replaced read: New Year's Day, Good Friday, Ascension Day, Workers' Day, Republic Day, Day of the Vow or Christmas Day.

A new security law took effect the same day

South African History Online's timeline records that the uprising took place on the day the Internal Security Amendment Act came into operation. On 19 June the Government Gazette announced that 123 people had been banned as a result of the revolt.

The other boy in the photograph vanished

Mbuyiswa Makhubo's mother told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that after the publication of the picture of her son carrying the fatally injured Hector Peterson, the police harassed her family severely until he decided to go into exile. She said he had not been seen or heard from since he wrote to her from Nigeria in 1978.

No royalties, and R100 as a token of appreciation

The copyright to Sam Nzima's photograph belonged to the Argus Printing Company, which owned The World, and United Press International sold the image on through that relationship. He was given no royalties but was, at some point, given R100 as a token of appreciation, and Independent Newspapers awarded him the copyright in the late 1990s, which he called 'too little too late'.

Gunshot wounds were filed as abscesses

Police wanted a list of everyone admitted to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital with gunshot wounds so survivors could be prosecuted for rioting. The clerks and doctors jointly decided to file the reason for admission as 'abscess' and 'drainage of abscess'.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Youth Day Matters

FINDING

A doctor's survey: all except one child shot above the waist.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that the students' march was peaceful until violent police intervention, and that the police adopted a shoot-to-kill policy. Dr Malcolm Klein, on duty at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital that morning, found on a quick survey of the casualty ward that all except one child had been shot above the waist.

SCALE

The uprising did not end that day

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission recorded that the conflict lasted fifteen months and spread to 200 towns and cities across South Africa. South African History Online counts 5 980 arrests for offences related to the resistance in the townships.

DIPLOMACY

It reached the Security Council in three days

The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 392 on 19 June 1976, condemning the South African Government for its resort to massive violence against and killings of the African people. The agenda item's own title named Soweto.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Youth Day

Visit the Hector Pieterson Museum in Orlando West

The museum stands on Kumalo Street in Orlando West. A memorial had been erected in front of the site earlier in the 1990s, two blocks from where Hector Pieterson was shot.

LEARN

Learn the names the photograph did not carry

Hastings Ndlovu and Hector Pieterson are both buried at Avalon Cemetery in Soweto. A blue plaque was attached to Ndlovu's Soweto house on 16 June 2012.

READ

Read the Commission's account of that morning

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission convened a special hearing on the Soweto uprising. Volume Three of its report carries the testimony given there.

ATTEND

Attend the national Youth Day commemoration

The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture leads the commemoration, with the National Youth Development Agency as a named partner. In 2026, the fiftieth anniversary of the uprising, its programme ran under the theme RESET@50, with a Youth Day event listed for the FNB Stadium Open Field in Nasrec, Johannesburg.

CHECK

Check what the Public Holidays Act guarantees employees

Section 5(1) of the Act entitles every employee to payment for every public holiday. Section 2(1) provides that when a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is a public holiday too.

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