MBOMBELA- President Cyril Ramaphosa says government will not rest until anti-apartheid activist, Nokuthula Simelane is found and laid to rest with dignity.
Ramaphosa was delivering the Inaugural Nokuthula Simelane Memorial Lecture at the University of Mpumalanga on Thursday, 3 September 2026.
Simelane, 23, was a student and Umkhonto we Sizwe courier who was lured to Johannesburg, abducted by apartheid security police, tortured and murdered in 1983. More than 40 years later, her remains have never been found.
“For more than four decades, the Simelane family has not been permitted the basic dignity of laying their daughter to rest,” Ramaphosa said.
The President told the Simelane family, led by her sister, Minister Thembi Simelane, that their pain is the nation’s pain. He said the State owes the family the truth about where she is buried, after former Security Branch officers admitted to her capture, but gave conflicting accounts of her murder.
The lecture also launched the Nokuthula Simelane Foundation and the Centre for Gender and Intersectional Studies at UMP.
Ramaphosa described Simelane as young, but purposeful, who rejected apartheid at a young age and risked her life carrying messages between Swaziland and South Africa.
“She would not surrender to fear of arrest, of torture or of death,” he said. He said her legacy challenges young people today to find purpose, to vote, and to build the non-racial, equal South Africa she died for.
On justice, Ramaphosa rejected the notion that the work of the TRC brought the country’s transitional justice process to an end.
“There is a view that has taken root in parts of our national life- that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded this business and that it is time to move on. We must resist this view. Without justice, there can never be lasting peace. We owe the Simelane family and every family still waiting for a grave to visit, nothing less than the whole truth,” he said.
