This letter is an appeal to Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality to observe Black History Month.
The United Nation declared February a month to remember the triumphs and tribulations of African people around the world.
Everyone of African descent should honour this month.
It gives us the opportunity to do some soul-searching, because we are still the least developed race in the world.
Our continent is plagued by war, poverty, malnutrition, corruption, and Aids.
We inherited these problems from our forefathers, and we are likely to pass them on to the next generation.
It is important to remember our heroes.
Mzansi must honour the more than six hundred South African troops who sank with the SS Mendi ship on 21 February 1917. Most of them were from the Eastern Cape.
Our government should see to it that the families of those brave men are compensated.
We also need their bones to be dug up so they can be buried at home. If this can be done for Umkhonto we Sizwe fighters, it can also be done for those soldiers.
As part of the country’s Black History Month celebrations, the government should reach out to the soldiers’ families and offer to take care of them.
The bones of those soldiers need to be returned to Eastern Cape.
Some of the soldiers were chiefs.
It’s sad that royal bones are at the bottom of the ocean instead of at home.
¦ Mongezi Ncwadi
New Brighton