NATIONAL NEWS - Dan Sechaba Motsistsi, one of the student leaders who participated in the 1976 Soweto uprising, has passed away.
Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla confirmed the news on Friday morning during a media briefing on government’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. The minister said Montsistsi died on Thursday evening from Covid-related complications.
“Before I went to bed late last night, I got a very distressing message that one of my very own old comrades and colleague, comrade Dan Sechaba Motsistsi, passed away last night,” Phaahla said.
“This is not just a statistic, but it’s people who at all times who are known by somebody. We want to pass our condolences to the family of comrade Dan Sechaba Motsistsi, his children and the rest of the family.”
Montsitsi was in his early 20s on 16 June 1976 when students marched against the apartheid government’s imposition of the Afrikaans language as a medium of instruction in schools
A year later, he was arrested by the police and tortured while in custody.
Montsistsi, Tsietsi Mashinini and Khotso Seatlholo were among the three key leaders of the Soweto uprising who became presidents of the then Soweto Students’ Representative Council.
Mashinini and Seatlholo have since passed away.
