Deaths
- 3 May – Cythna Lindenberg Letty, a botanical artist and author, dies in Pretoria
- 5 May – Sipho Mutsi (20), a Congress of South African Students member, dies in police custody
- 6 May – Andries Raditsela (29), Congress of South African Trade Unions and Chemical Workers' Industrial Union member, dies of head injuries after being violently confronted by police
- 14 May – Vernon Nkadimeng, is killed by a car bomb in Gaborone, Botswana
- 14 June – Thamsanga Mnyele, artist and activist, is killed during a South African Army in Gaborone
- August – Bill Mentoor, becomes the first person to be necklaced (a car tire filled with petrol and placed over a person's neck and set alight) in Queenstown, Eastern Cape
- 15 December – Ruben Xulu, artist, dies at Mariannhill outside Durban
Read more about this topic: 1985 In South Africa
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances ...”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“You lived too long, we have supped full with heroes,
they waste their deaths on us.”
—C.D. Andrews (1913–1992)
“This is the 184th Demonstration.
...
What we do is not beautiful
hurts no one makes no one desperate
we do not break the panes of safety glass
stretching between people on the street
and the deaths they hire.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)