MAY 13, 1969 MASS GRAVE

 

This grave in the photo is the May 13, 1969, mass grave - the main burial site for victims of the May 13 racial riots.

History

What happened: On 13 May 1969, a week-long racial riot broke out in Kuala Lumpur in the aftermath of Malaysia's 3rd general election. It remains the defining moment in Malaysian politics.

Official figures from the National Operations Council (NOC) report: 196 killed, 180 wounded by firearms and 259 by other weapons. Other researchers believe the real death toll was much higher.

The burial:

Few Malaysians know that a mass grave for the victims, built 'by the courtesy of the Malaysian government', is located within the Sungai Buloh Leprosarium (SBL).

The NOC report says 2 burial grounds were selected by the Ministry of Health based on the "relative absence of incidents in these areas": 

• Sungai Buloh (coordinates: 3°13'6"N 101°35'48"E)
• Gombak (3°12'52"N 101°43'9"E)

In Sungai Buloh: 103 persons were buried – 99 Chinese, 2 Muslim and 2 Indian. They were buried on 18th, 20th, 21st and 22nd May 1969, with one body discovered later brought for burial on 2nd June 1969.

In Gombak (Taman Ibu Kota Muslim Cemetery): 11 Muslim victims who could be identified as Muslims were buried.

According to oral testimony of Dr Lim Kuan Joo, a final-year medical student at University of Malaya who helped, bodies were pre-identified in the mortuary with cardboard tags on toes, then brought in a Black Maria lorry. They were buried naked without a single coffin in 4-foot-deep trenches pre-dug by leprosy inmates. Soldiers and lepers were employed as grave diggers.

Why Sungai Buloh Leprosarium?

The leprosarium was historically a segregated space to keep pathologised others out of sight. As a gated settlement with 3 gates preventing free movement, burying political victims there kept emotive visual cues of a violent past out of public sight and helped control memories of the riot.

Families struggled for decades to find where loved ones were buried, because the site was not publicised and headstones were simple/unmarked.

Location of the grave in the photo

This is the Sungai Buloh site. 

• Officially: National Leprosy Control Centre (NLCC), Valley of Bukit Lagong, Selangor, 25 km from Kuala Lumpur
• Today: Inside the compound near Sungai Buloh Hospital, close to the mosque you see in the background, and the Pangsapuri Nuri Blok A / Blok B apartments are visible in your photo.
• The exact NOC coordinate is 3°13'6"N 101°35'48"E.

The mosque in the photo is Masjid Hospital Sungai Buloh. It's not a famous historical mosque itself - it's the settlement mosque that was built for the leprosy centre.

There is also a second smaller May 13 Muslim cemetery in Taman Ibu Kota, Gombak.

Since 2017, families have started holding public memorials there - for the first time in 48 years - to pay respects to the victims.

Hj Zulheimy Maamor

24 September 2026: 4:38 a.m.