"The first shot was fired before children started throwing stones. Then absolute chaos broke out. The children ran all over the place and stoned the police." A postmortem revealed that Hector had been killed by a shot fired directly into him, not a bullet ricocheting off the ground as the police later stated. The dawn of 17 June revealed burnt-out cars and trucks blocking the roads, virtually every liquor store, beerhall, and community centre burnt to the ground. And dead bodies lying in the streets. The official death toll was 23; others put it as high as 200. Many hundreds of people were injured.Students again poured into the streets. Parents stayed away from work to watch over their families. Police patrolled the streets. By the end of the third day of rioting, the Minister of Bantu Education had closed all schools in Soweto. The rioting soon spread from Soweto to other towns on the Witwatersrand, Pretoria, to Durban and Cape Town, and developed into the largest outbreak of violence South Africa had experienced. Coloured and Indian students joined their black comrades. And unlike the riots of 1952 and the Sharpeville riots of 1961, the police were unable to quell the rioters, even with force. Students showed reckless disregard for their own safety to vent their frustrations. As soon as the upheavals were suppressed in one area than they flared up elsewhere. And so it continued for the rest of 1976. A new generation had made their voice of opposition to apartheid heard, and were determined to be listed to. Many left South Africa to join the armies of the exiled political movements. Those who stayed behind ensured the exiled organisations could count on support from within the townships. June the 16th would never be forgotten."
A small tribute ....Always remembered, never repeated peace n blessings
