/ 7 November 1999

CANADA MAKES WAR GRAVES CONTRIBUTION

NEARLY a century after the end of the Boer Wars, Ottawa is starting to pay South Africa to look after the graves of Canadian soldiers who died in the conflict. Canada’s Department of Veterans Affairs is sending R12000 to the National Monuments Council in South Africa as an initial contribution to cost of maintaining the 270 Canadian graves in cemeteries where Empire soldiers were buried during the 1899-1902 Boer Wars. Britain and Australia pay regularly for the upkeep of the cemeteries, but Canada has spent nothing until now on the graves of its first soldiers to have fought overseas.