Walter Sisulu University employee shot dead at campus gate
A staff member of Walter Sisulu University (WSU) was shot dead on the Mthatha campus on Thursday evening.
Eastern Cape police said the employee was discovered inside a stationary vehicle, near the Nkululekweni entrance gate adjacent to the N2 highway, just before 18:00.
'Preliminary forensic analysis confirms the victim sustained multiple gunshot wounds while seated in the driver's [seat]. The motive remains unknown,' said Brigadier Nobuntu Gantana.
'The identity of the deceased will be formally released once next-of-kin notification is complete, as per SAPS (South African Police Service) protocol. Forensic experts and detectives are actively processing the secured crime scene.'
Mthatha residents were on Thursday participating in a day of mourning at the nearby King Sabata Dalindyebo TVET College, following devastating floods last week that left at least 92 dead and over 4 000 households destroyed.
READ | Walter Sisulu University student remembered as caring and protective at memorial service
Acting provincial police commissioner Major General Thandiswa Kupiso said they had mobilised maximum resources to pursue all leads in the staff member's murder.
'Public speculation must be avoided to preserve the integrity of the investigation,' said Kupiso.
This is the second reported shooting at the campus in recent months.
On 15 April, WSU Bachelor of Education student Sisonke Mbolekwa was shot dead, allegedly by the university's residence manager, Manelisi Mampane.
Mampane, who was arrested on charges including murder and attempted murder, is currently out on R10 000 bail.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Teenager who stabbed 12-year-old Ava White named as he turns 18
The teenager who fatally stabbed 12-year-old Ava White in Liverpool city centre can be named for the first time as he turns 18. Harry Gilbertson was 14 when he carried out the attack on the schoolgirl on November 25 2021. The following year, he was convicted of her murder after a trial and, at 15, he was sentenced to a minimum of 13 years for her murder. Reporting restrictions preventing Gilbertson from being identified were kept in place until he turned 18, despite representations from the media, which were supported by Ava's family. Ava's mother Leeann White, 42, said: 'I wanted the whole world to know who he was. I think Liverpool had the right to know who he was as well.' She said since the trial, she had been told very little about Gilbertson, but had learnt he had done his GCSEs. Speaking through tears, she said: 'It should have been Ava sitting her GCSEs, not him.' On Ava's 15th birthday, in January 2024, Ms White's nephew was sent a photograph from a seemingly fake Snapchat profile which appeared to show Gilbertson posing for the camera with his arms crossed alongside another male whose face had been covered on the photo with a logo and who had his middle finger up. Ms White reported the photo and was told Gilbertson had been using an iPad for educational purposes and there was a glitch in the system allowing him to use the internet, but was also told the photo had been taken while he was on a visit. She said she was told he had been 'read the riot act' but had no formal punishment. She said: 'He didn't get any privileges taken off him. He just got a telling off basically.' She said she felt 'really angry' when she saw the picture. 'I can never have a photograph with my child now so why does he have the right? He lost his rights when he murdered my child,' she said Ms White, who has set up a foundation in Ava's name that provides bleed control kits to premises, said she had mixed emotions about Gilbertson being named. 'I try not to think about him if I'm being honest, because if I do, I'm just taking a million steps back,' she said. 'So I just try to focus on Ava and doing stuff for her legacy is more important to me than thinking about him.' When making the decision to keep reporting restrictions in place, trial judge Mrs Justice Yip said there were concerns for Gilbertson's younger siblings, one of whom had not been told their brother was on trial for murder. Ms White said: 'Yet I had to sit my little nephews and nieces down and tell them about Ava, but they could hide everything for him. I feel like they've done everything they can to protect him and his family.' She said she felt her own family had 'nowhere near' the same protection. Ava had been in the city centre with friends on the night the Christmas lights were being switched on. The group became involved in an argument with Gilbertson and his friends, who had been filming Snapchat videos of them. Gilbertson was carrying a knife and struck Ava once to the neck, causing her fatal injury, before fleeing the scene, discarding the weapon and getting rid of his coat. He was seen on CCTV in a shop later that night taking a selfie and buying butter, which he said was for crumpets. Ms White added: 'I think he's got understanding (of what he's done), he's quite a clever child. 'He's got understanding, he's just got no remorse. 'It really doesn't feel like justice. He still gets to live and breathe. My Ava doesn't. His mum can see him getting married, having a baby. I'm never going to have that with Ava.' Since Ava's death, Ms White, along with Ava's older sister Mia and her aunt June White, have worked through the Ava White Foundation to provide hundreds of bleed control kits in the hope they can prevent other families from going through what they experienced. At least six lives have been saved thanks to the kits provided by the Ava White Foundation, Ms White said. The packs, which include gauze, trauma dressings and tourniquets, are delivered to schools, pubs and businesses and training is given on how to use them. When a 14-year-old girl and 15-year-old boy were stabbed in Kirkby, Merseyside, in April, a bleed control kit donated in Ava's name to a nearby pub was used to help treat the children, who were both taken to hospital but survived. Ms White said: 'I think every establishment should have one. The way knife crime is, it's not going down, it's getting worse. Everyone needs to be aware of this training, it's so easy.' She said hearing of other children killed through knife crime made her 'sad for the child but more so for the mum and what she's got to go through now'. Since Ava's death she no longer has 'good days' but has 'OK days and really bad days', she said. She added: 'What keeps me going is I'm keeping Ava's name out there and that's more important to me, to keep Ava's name out there so she's not forgotten.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Suspect in fatal east-end stabbing considered armed, dangerous
Police have identified a suspect in a deadly east-end stabbing earlier this week. Toronto Police investigated a stabbing call in the Danforth-Hillingdon Aves. area — east of Coxwell Ave. — on Tuesday around 11 p.m. Police said an altercation occurred between two males behind a plaza and they located the victim. The victim was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. On Wednesday, the victim of Toronto's 16th homicide was identified as Ashkan Pournasir-Roudbane, 36, of Toronto. On Thursday night, police said Anthony Steven Oliveira, 24, of no fixed address, had been identified as the suspect and is wanted for first-degree murder. The suspect should be considered armed and dangerous. He is known to use public transit throughout the GTA, including in Toronto, Durham Region and Peel Region. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 416-808-7400, or contact Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477) or CRIME SCENE: Oshawa man wanted on warrant for alleged assault Man, 22, charged for violent assault in Courtice
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Critic of Nicaragua's Ortega shot dead in exile in Costa Rica
A retired Nicaraguan army officer in exile who fiercely criticized authoritarian President Daniel Ortega was shot dead Thursday in neighboring Costa Rica, his family and officials said. Major Roberto Samcam, 66, was gunned down at his apartment building in San Jose, reportedly by men pretending to deliver a package. "It was something we did not expect, we could not have imagined it," Samantha Jiron, Samcam's adoptive daughter, told AFP from her home in Madrid. Nicaraguan rights groups and exiled dissidents immediately blamed the government of Ortega and his co-president wife Rosario Murillo. "Roberto was a powerful voice" who "directly denounced the dictatorship" of Ortega, Samcam's wife Claudia Vargas told reporters in San Jose as she fought back tears. His job, she said, was to "expose human rights violations" in his homeland. The head of Costa Rica's judicial police, Randall Zuniga, said that the attackers took advantage of the fact that Samcam's apartment building was unguarded in the mornings. The gunman "called out to... Roberto," who "approached without knowing" the danger, Zuniga said. "When he was within striking range, the individual began shooting at him and hit him at least eight times," he told reporters. The Nicaraguan news site Confidencial reported that the killers fled the scene by motorbike. The US State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said on X that it was "shocked" by Samcam's murder and offered Costa Rica help in "holding the assassins and those behind them accountable." Nicaragua's former ambassador to the Organization of American States, Arturo McFields, who lives in exile in the United States, called the killing "an act of cowardice and criminal political revenge by the dictatorship of Nicaragua." "The manner of the crime indicates political motives. This is very serious," Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli, exiled in Spain, stated on X. Neither Ortega nor his government commented on the case. Samcam, who was a political analyst, had spoken out frequently against the government in Managua, which he fled in 2018 to live with his wife in Costa Rica. That year, protests against Ortega's government were violently repressed, resulting in more than 300 deaths, according to the UN. In January last year, another Nicaraguan opposition activist living in Costa Rica, Joao Maldonado, was shot while driving with his girlfriend in San Jose. Both were seriously wounded. While the motive of that attack was the object of much speculation, Samcam's killing fueled suspicion among Nicaraguans that it may also have been linked to his political activities. - 'Night of long knives' - Former Costa Rican president Luis Guillermo Solis called Samcam's murder "for his frontal opposition to the Ortega and Murillo dictatorship" an "outrageous and extremely serious act." "I feel that Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo are initiating a 'Night of the Long Knives'... due to the regime's weakening," Dora Maria Tellez, a former associate of Ortega turned critic, said from Spain, where she too is in exile. The "Night of the Long Knives" was a bloody purge of rivals ordered by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in 1934. "They resort to the execution of a retired ex-military officer, whom they believe has a voice that resonates within the ranks of the army," Tellez told the Nicaraguan news outlet 100% Noticias. Ortega, now 79, first served as president from 1985 to 1990 as a former guerrilla hero who had helped oust a brutal US-backed regime. Returning to power in 2007, he became ever more authoritarian, according to observers, jailing hundreds of opponents, real and perceived, in recent years. Ortega's government has shut down more than 5,000 non-governmental organizations since the 2018 mass protests that he considered a US-backed coup attempt. Thousands of Nicaraguans have fled into exile, and the regime is under US and EU sanctions. Most independent and opposition media operate from abroad. Pro-government media in Nicaragua did not report on Samcam's killing. bur-fj/cb/sst
