South Africa to mark 30 years of freedom amid inequality and tense election ahead

South Africa will mark 30 years of freedom this Saturday April 27, as the country remembers the day in 1994 when millions cast their vote in South Africa's first ever democratic elections.

South Africans celebrate Freedom Day on April 27 each year, marking the end of the brutal system of racial discrimination known as apartheid.

As 72-year-old Nonki Kunene walks through the corridors of Thabisang Primary School in Soweto, South Africa, she recalls the joy she and many others felt 30 years ago when they voted for the first time.

It was at this school on April 27, 1994 that Kunene joined millions of South Africans to brave long queues and cast a vote in South Africa's first ever democratic elections after years of white minority rule which denied Black South Africans the basic right.

Like many things in South Africa, the school has changed and what used to stand there as a school hall has now been turned into several classrooms.

“I somehow wish we could go back to that day, because of how excited I was and the things that happened thereafter,” said Kunene, referring to Nelson Mandela becoming the country's first ever Black president and the introduction of a new Constitution.

It afforded all South Africans equal rights, abolishing the racially discriminative system of apartheid.

Suffering under apartheid

For many who experienced apartheid, the suffering of those years remains etched in their collective memory.

“I cannot forget how we suffered at the hands of whites. In the city at night, there were white bikers with hair like this (describing a mohawk-like hairstyle) who would brutally assault a Black person if they saw them walking on the pavement. Those white boys were cruel."

"If they saw you walking on the pavement, you would be assaulted so badly and left for dead," said 87-year-old Lily Makhanya, whose late husband died while working in the anti-apartheid movement's underground structures.

For Makhanya and many others who braved the lengthy queues to vote 30 years ago, 27 April 1994 represented a turning point from a brutal past to a prosperous future.