Local News
UFS student activist killed─── MOEKETSI MOGOTSI 11:24 Mon, 17 Jul 2017
Bloemfontein - A #FeesMustFall activist from the University of the Free State (UFS) was allegedly stabbed and killed in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape over the weekend.
Philela Gilwa, who’s originally from Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, was set to return to university next semester after suspension for his involvement in protests that followed the Shimla Park incident.
UFS SRC President, Sikhululekile Luwaca, says it’s sad to have lost a great student leader that he served alongside, especially given the fact that he was assisting the underprivileged in the community in the Western Cape while he was on suspension.
“He made vast contributions and he was also a victim of a systematic exclusion because he had a disciplinary hearing even at school because of his activism. So he was going to come back to campus this coming semester. Desmond Tutu says that we do not live in a vacuum. Each and every one of us is a constituent of a greater organism. So he was making that contribution.”
Luwaca added that violence in society is becoming so problematic. Fees Must Fall Western Cape said on Facebook it is saddened by his death. The movement said Gilwa’s death is a “rude awakening and a cold reminder that life in the township is a borrowed existence”.
OFM News
