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Durban – Two pupils were stabbed and admitted to hospital in what was thought to be gang-related violence at a high school in Hopewell in Pietermaritzburg, on Monday.
It was the third such stabbing at the Umlulama Secondary School this year.
Pupils said a boy and girl had been stabbed, just days apart in February.
Nkosingiphile Ngcamu, 16, died after being stabbed several times last October.
Police spokeswoman Joey Jeevan said on Monday that Siyanda Sithole, 16, had been stabbed in the left shoulder and Zwelihle Mkhize, 17, three times in the back.
Two groups of boys were involved in a fight on the school premises before 8am, she said.
The vice-principal, Henry Dumisani Nxele, was calling the pupils to the assembly area when he noticed a 17-year-old pupil carrying a bush knife.
“He confronted him and seized the bush knife from him.”
While he was addressing him in his office, Nxele heard noises outside, and then saw that Sithole had been stabbed.
Mkhize was also on the ground bleeding.
Jeevan said the suspects, who were pupils, ran away.
The injured teenagers were taken to Edendale Hospital, where they are in a stable condition. Jeevan said the suspects would be arrested in the next few days.
Pupils said they were afraid at school, and that searches for weapons were not done regularly.
Local councillor Bonginkosi Shange said meetings were ongoing in the community to discuss how to curb gang-related violence.
Department of Education spokesman Sihle Mlotshwa said that the main problem appeared to be the formation of gangs in the community, which extended into the school.
“We urge the community to fight that scourge and ensure the school is protected at all costs.”
The school’s teachers refused to divulge information about the stabbing.
Mxolisi Mnwaba, the Department of Education circuit manager, referred all queries to the department.
There has been an increase in school stabbings in the province this year. In March, a Clairwood schoolboy was killed by a classmate.
A month earlier, a pupil was killed by a classmate in an argument over a desk at Mandlenkosi High School, at Lindelani, near Ntuzuma.
There have also been stabbings at KwaMashu’s Kwesethu High School and Vryheid High School.
Another pupil was killed at Siyanda High School in Sweetwaters, Pietermaritzburg.
The Mercury
