At least 69 were killed when South African police opened fire on black protestors in Sharpeville on March 21, 1960. Photo: AFP

Unesco has added the scene of an apartheid-era massacre to its World Heritage List, in an entry honouring South Africa's struggle that ended white-minority rule 30 years ago.

The new listing is made up of 14 locations across South Africa.

They include the scene of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre when police shot dead 69 black protestors, including children, in a turning point in the struggle that led the apartheid government to ban the African National Congress (ANC) that now governs.

"Twenty-five years after Robben Island was inscribed on Unesco's World Heritage List, this new inscription ensures that the legacy of South Africa's liberation and the values it embodies will be transmitted to future generations," Unesco direct or-general Audrey Azoulay said.

The addition of the sites to the World Heritage register was agreed at a UNESCO meeting in New Delhi which also approved the inscription of three locations in South Africa important in the understanding of the origins of modern humans.

Located in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, the sites "provide the most varied and best-preserved record known of the development of modern human behaviour, reaching back as far as 162,000 years," the Unesco entry says.

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AFP