EWN travelled to the Highgate Hotel with survivors and families of the victims, many of whom returned to the site for the first time in years to recount what happened that night and the long battle for truth and accountability that followed.
New judicial findings into the 1993 Highgate Massacre have formally overturned decades of assumptions about who carried out the attack, placing responsibility on apartheid security forces rather than the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA), the former military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).
The ruling was handed down earlier in December, a month in which South Africans also observe the Day of Reconciliation, a national holiday established to bridge past divisions and promote unity after apartheid. The day is closely associated with the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), making unresolved cases like the Highgate Massacre a continuing reminder of how parts of the country's past remain unsettled.
On 1 May 1993, a gunman opened fire inside the Highgate Hotel in East London, killing five people: Boyce Wheeler, Derek Whitfield, Stanley Hacking, Deon Harris and Douglas Gates. Several others were injured, including survivors who have spent more than three decades seeking clarity, accountability and closure.
EWN visited the former Highgate Hotel site with survivors and family members of those killed. They traced the layout of the bar, identified where victims fell, and recounted the sequence of events that unfolded in minutes.