Death of Maki Skosana
South African murder victim
Maki Skosana (c. 1961 – July 20, 1985) was a South African woman who was burned to death and the footage broadcast live on apartheid-era South Africa's state-run television. She was killed by a mob of anti-apartheid activists who suspected her of being a police informant. Her death by "necklacing" elicited outrage beyond the nation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has identified Skosana as the first known victim of necklacing, although it is more likely that she was not the first such lynching, only the first filmed.
Death
Maki Skosana, 24, was an unmarried factory worker and single mother to a five-year-old son.
On July 20, 1985, the 24-year-old Skosana was the first of a series of victims in South Africa to be filmed being killed by necklacing. Necklacing was a brutal practice that occurred in townships, even after apartheid was abolished in the early 1990s.
Skosana's death occurred in the township of Duduza, west of Nigel on the East Rand, Gauteng. Suspected of being an informer for the South African Police, Skosana was killed for her presumed involvement in the deaths of four youth activists who were given faulty grenades that would explode the moment the pin was removed and told to attack police houses. Their deaths were reportedly planned by the "Third Force": a supposed group of covert government operatives tasked with managing township resistance.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16011374. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961 and 1985.
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This entry incorporates text from “Death of Maki Skosana” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.