Johannesburg – The gravesite of anti-apartheid struggle hero Robert Sobukwe has been vandalised again.
The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) leadership on Monday, 3 August 2026, said it has “noted with sadness and utter dismay that the grave of the founding president of the PAC has been desecrated for the umpteenth time by unknown evil people who work in the dark”.
Concerned community members reported the gravesite vandalisation to the Sobukwe family and the local political party leaders on the morning of Friday, 31 July 2026.
They reported that the gravesite for Mangaliso Sobukwe (1924 – 1978), Veronica Sobukwe (1927 – 2018), and the ashes of their son, Dinilesizwe Tebello Sobukwe (1956 – 2019) was vandalised.
“The graves have been desecrated more than six times before this incident,” the PAC said.
“Reports say the vandals dug up the inside of the grave and attempted to reach the coffin and the human remains of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, who was buried in March 1978.
“His wife and his eldest son are buried next to him.
“The evil of those who are responsible for the desecration of the gravesite is something out of this world.”
PAC Deputy President Jaki Stone Seroke remarked that it was their shocking inhumanity and cruelty that “makes us imagine them to be beastly and barbaric”.
Seroke said such horror can only be found in gothic pieces of drama, filled with the highest degree of wickedness.
The PAC deputy president suggested a link between the vandalisation of the Sobukwe grave site and opposition to the renaming of Graaff-Reinet, a town in the Eastern Cape, to Robert Sobukwe Town, gazetted in February 2026.
“Two community dialogues have been held in the town of more than fifty thousand households,” Seroke said.
“The PAC sent its most advanced cadres and middle-ranking leaders to mediate and bring calm into the fray while the government processes on the name change were taking place.
“These dialogues were seen as a bridge-building effort for those with different views to find a common ground to face the future.”
Seroke said the PAC joins the dots and associates the vandalism with attempts to intimidate the peace process and drive a wedge of anger to keep people apart.
“The evil of destroying the graves is understood to be a planned response to sabotage social cohesion and cooperation of communities in the Graaff-Reinet / Sobukwe Town environment,” Seroke said.
