Five WSU students hurt in clashes with security guards

Five Walter Sisulu University students were taken to hospital after a clash with armed security guards at the university’s Mthatha campus on Thursday.

The chaos at the Nelson Mandela Drive and Zamukulungisa sites erupted just after 9am, when security guards ordered a group of students who had arrived for registration to vacate the premises.

Provincial health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo confirmed five students were treated at Mthatha General Hospital on Thursday.

“They suffered soft tissue injuries and lacerations,” he said. ​

SRC president at the Mthatha campus, Sihle Msomi, alleged the security guards had fired rubber bullets and used  security batons to assault the students.

“As a result we have students that are injured.

“They were bleeding, some with fractured bones,” he said.

He said they were only taken to hospital when police arrived.

“Otherwise they were kept there without getting any medical assistance,” he said.

 Msomi said they had an arrangement with the campus management for those students who had already registered to be accommodated.

He said he suspected the decision of management to have the students removed was because of the list of demands they sent on Wednesday.

“One of those demands was that students who had registered must be allocated accommodation, but because of the incompetence of the staff and the system they use, they failed to do that,” he said.

Msomi said it had become a “norm” at the university that whenever students voiced their displeasure the “first response of the management is eviction”.

“It is like we are a university which is led by a group of people who do not think or reason, they just act,” he said.

Msomi said attempts to get answers on why registered students had not been allocated accommodation fell on deaf ears.

“Instead of finding a way to meet our demands, they send armed security guards to brutalise defenceless and harmless students,” he said.

Msomi defended the students for clashing with the security guards, saying they were only retaliating to the “brutality” they were exposed to.

University spokesperson Yonela Tukwayo had not responded to queries at the time of writing.

sinom@dispatch.co.za