NEW research has shown that at least 80 people — many of them youths — were murdered by South Africa’s racist apartheid police 63 years ago this month in what became known as the Sharpeville Massacre. Officials at the time lied that the figure was only 69 as part of a big state cover-up.

The damning findings by US scholars say that, in addition, 297 people were seriously injured at Sharpeville when officers with submachine guns opened fire on peaceful, unarmed protesters outside a police station. It was a demonstration called by the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania against the hated “pass laws” that forced black people to either carry identity cards or be thrown in jail.

To commemorate the massacre, which shocked the world and helped to eventually crush apartheid and usher in black-majority rule, UN chiefs made March 21 its Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.