TWO STUDENTS KILLED, 5 INJURED AT WSU PARTY

We don’t know ‘how someone with weapons managed to get inside’

Two students were killed and five injured at a party which turned vicious at Walter Sisulu University’s Mthatha campus on Saturday night.

Fighting broke out at a massive SRC-hosted campus bash called the Freshers’ Braai at the university stadium.

The night of partying was to mark the arrival of new students at the Mthatha campus’s two sites, Nelson Mandela Drive (NMD) and Zamukulungisa. About 5,000 students attended, said SRC site co-ordinator Sinethemba Gwantshu.

The condition of the injured students was not known by Monday night. The dead students are not being named until the university has notified their families.

Police spokesperson captain Dineo Koena said one student died at the scene of the party early on Sunday.

Koena said another student’s body was found in a pool of blood on the N2, less than a kilometre from the university.

“They both had stab wounds in their upper bodies,” she said, adding a fight had broken out during the party.

“The one who was stabbed inside the premises died on the scene and the second one was found along the N2 at about 10am on Sunday,” she said.

University spokesperson Yonela Tukwayo said one of the dead students had been studying for a bachelor of environmental sciences degree and the other was doing a diploma in business management in technology. Both were studying at the NMD site.

Gwantshu said they were still in shock. “We still do not understand how someone with weapons managed to get inside the venue when there was security,” she said.

She said to the families: “We are crying with them.

“Their loss is our loss. These were our fellow students and they did not deserve such horrible deaths.”

Gwantshu said as the SRC, they would do all in their power to help the authorities track down the killers.

“We want the law to take its course and for police to arrest all those responsible for these murders,” she said.

Gwantshu said prior to the event they organised for police and emergency personnel to be on site. “When we heard about the incident, we immediately called the ambulance, but by the time it arrived, he was already dead,” she said.

Yanela Kutwana, a friend of the student who died on campus, said he became worried when he saw on social media that students had been stabbed, and his friend had not returned to his residence.

Kutwana said in his desperate attempt to locate his friend, he sent a picture of the friend to SRC members, who later confirmed that it was his friend who was dead.

“We went to the bash together, but went our separate ways later,” he said. Kutwana described his friend as ambitious. “He had big dreams.”

Tukwayo said: “The university management is extremely shocked at this spate of student killings, which is simply unacceptable.

“It is unfortunate that when security is beefed up, management is viewed as heavy-handed. When we remove the heavy security, people claim that the university is slack.”

Tukwayo said the university management, SRC and other stakeholders would meet to discuss how to keep the university’s students and staff safe.

She said: “Inasmuch as the university is a microcosm of our society and Mthatha being a crime hotspot, we cannot allow societal crime trends to manifest in our university.”

Some students who took to social media called on the university to host no more parties and others called WSU “the university of alcohol and death”. Koena said police were investigating two cases of murder. “No arrests have been made,” she said.