14 Apartheid Sites Listed as World Heritage by UNESCO
Several sites in South Africa associated with the country’s long and bloody anti-apartheid struggle have recently been added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Heritage List.
The system of institutionalized racial segregation came into being in South Africa following the Second World War. It was finally eradicated in the early 1990s – largely due to the sacrifices of activists like Nelson Mandela, who went on to serve as the country’s first post-apartheid president.
Newly nominated to UNESCO as « Human Rights, Liberation Struggle and Reconciliation: Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites », the serial property consists of fourteen component parts scattered around the country, all related to South Africa’s political history in the 20th century.
These include the Union Buildings, which are now the official seat of the South African government and house the offices of the President. Over the years, they have hosted many important events, such as the inauguration of South Africa’s first democratically elected president in 1994. A nine-meter-high bronze statue of Nelson Mandela has stood at the foot of the buildings ever since it was unveiled a day after his funeral in Qunu – a village near the late president’s birthplace – in late 2013…
