They say 36,000 applications have been put in by individuals and communities seeking the return of land orginally owned by them or their families.

But last-minute applications are flooding in, with the total expected to reach 40,000 by the 31 December cut-off date.

Officials at the Department of Land Affairs were quoted as saying that some regional offices had taken more than 1,000 calls in recent days from people seeking to press their claims.

In one settlement, part of the Kruger National Park has been returned to the ownership of a community of 10,000 people who will now run their own game reserve in partnership with the National Parks Board.

Another claim involves land now occupied by Johannesburg International Airport.

Slow progress

However, the commission responsible for dealing with the claims is making slow progress, hindered by legal complications.

All claims are subject to legal adjudication in the Land Claims Court, a body set up in 1996 specifically for this purpose.

In some cases land may have been bought and sold several times since being seized from its original owners.

Some of the claims date back as far as 1913, the year of the Land Act which earmarked the majority of South African land for white ownership, decades before the word "apartheid" was coined.

But the Land Claims Commission is optimistic that it will be able to settle all claims by the end of the 15-year period allocated to its work.

The restoration of land to the dispossessed was an important promise in South Africa's first all-race election in 1994, which brought the African National Congress to power.

But some opposition politicians have criticised the slow progress and called on the ANC to revoke the deadline.