WATCH | THE APARTHEID KILLER: EXPOSING THE GHOSTS OF SOUTH AFRICA’S PAST

Fri 26 July 2024:

One of worst mass killers in South Africa’s history is free from prison – and he is ready to speak. Thirty years since his atrocities, his victims are still fighting for closure and justice.

In the late 1980s, private security guard Louis van Schoor fatally shot dozens people in the South African city of East London. All of his victims were black. The youngest was just 12 years old.

It is a bloodbath that places Van Schoor among the most prolific killers in history. He was caught and arrested in 1991. But with many of his shootings signed off by local police as ‘justifiable homicides,’ he would receive a shockingly light sentence – serving only 12 years in jail. Decades have past, but the relatives of his victims have never found closure.

How many people did Van Schoor really kill? And who else was involved?

It’s been thirty years since the white supremacist apartheid regime crumbled. The unresolved trauma of this time has cast a long shadow across a nation.

In piecing together the story of Van Schoor, this #BBCAfricaEye investigation exposes the disturbed past and racial injustices of South Africa itself.