About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

Ngakane, Shadrack

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Shadrack was born in Transkei. His father was a miner and the family moved to Springs to be with him. Shadrack is the second child in a family of seven children.

He attended Primary School at KwaThema Combined School in Springs. He became politically aware when he went to high school in 1980.

He joined an underground cell of the ANC and was detained and tortured four times in eight months. The cell operated under the wing of COSAS which became affiliated to the UDF. In 1984 he was forced to leave the country.

He went via Mozambique to Angola where he trained for ten months. He then went to Yugoslavia where he specialised in Military Science, and then to the GDR where he specialised in Political Science. On his return he spent about three months in Angola and then was sent to the Soviet Union for further specialisation in politics. He again returned to Angola and was deployed in the propaganda section of MK.

He was seriously wounded by an anti-personnel mine in Angola and sent to Zimbabwe for hospital treatment.

He returned to South Africa in 1991.

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.