WSU students demand safer campus residence after alleged rape

Hundreds of female students at Walter Sisulu University’s Mthatha campus are gathered outside campus control to hand over a memorandum of grievances.

This comes after a student was allegedly raped on Saturday night inside her room at the Mthatha campus’ Atlanta residence.

SRC student affairs officer Luvo Kasa told DispatchLIVE on Monday morning that the suspect gained access to the student’s room through the roof, according to the information they received from the victim.

Dressed in black, students gathered outside the residence where the alleged incident took place and marched to campus control, where they were going to hand over the memorandum.

They carried placards that read “We live in fear, stop rape” and “Res is our safe space. No to rape.”Kasa said they were gathered outside the campus’ control office waiting for someone to receive their memorandum around 10am.

One of the female students who are part of the demonstration, Ncebakazi Mbiko, said they were marching to highlight the unsafe conditions they lived under.

“Atlanta residence has eight blocks and there are only three security guards and that is not enough,” she said.

In the memorandum, the students demand that each block at Atlanta have at least two security guards.

They also want all the roofs at Atlanta residence to be fixed with immediate effect.