Friday, February fourteenth, the UN says at least 22 people have been killed in a village in the Northwest region of Cameroon. Over half of those killed were children. No one has claimed responsibility for Friday’s incident but the opposition parties blame the killing on the government.
Students clamoring free education clashed with police
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Hundreds
of students demanding free education have clashed with police in renewed
violence at South Africa's top university in Johannesburg after it attempted to
reopen following recent unrest.
Police
used tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades and water cannon on Monday to
disperse stone-throwing protesters at Witwatersrand University, also known
as Wits.
Blade
Nzimande, the country's education minister, appealed for dialogue and condemned
the violence, saying the university's efforts to run its academic programme were
being "held to ransom by irresponsible and disrespectful striking
students".
Two
arrests were made and minor injuries reported, according to a statement by the
university.
"The
students started throwing sizeable rocks that could have maimed or killed people,"
Wits said in a statement after trying to reopen on Monday.
Monday's
chaos started with protesters moving through science and mathematics buildings,
seeking to disrupt classes. Libraries and a large laboratory were empty. Later,
there were tense exchanges.
As
police helicopters circled, some protesters spilled into city streets. A bus
was set on fire, and thick smoke billowed into the air.
Speaking
to Al Jazeera, Thato Mokoena, one of the student leaders, called on the
university management to stop "militarisation" of the campus.
"The
university needs to start realising that every day we have security and police,
every day we have violence. Every other day when they are not here, everything
is OK. So I think there should be a de-militarisation of our campuses," he
said.
Police
and student protesters also fought on a campus of the University of
KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, the African News Agency reported.
Unrest
was reported at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein as well.
The
protests are part of the nationwide Fees Must Fall campaign about the cost of
studying in the country's universities, which are prohibitive for many black
students.
Student
protests last year forced President Jacob Zuma to rule out fee increases for 2016.
The
students' demand for free education has received backing from the far-left
Economic Freedom Fighters, the third largest party in parliament.
But
university authorities have warned that fee cuts could damage academic
standards.
While
the government also said it will cover 2017 fee increases for poor students
despite funding challenges, protesters argue that the country must address
economic inequities in the education system that date from the country's former
system of racial separation known as apartheid.
"We
need to know that models [for free education] are going to be piloted and
tested in 2017," followed by implementation in 2018, said Fasiha Hassan, a
law student and protest leader at Wits.
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