By Lungani Zungu
With his last breath matriculant Thabani Vilakazi gave the people standing around a message to give to his mother.
“Tell my mother I love her,” he said.
The 21-year-old learner had been stabbed allegedly by a grade 10 pupil after an altercation. The pupil immediately fled the scene.
This gruesome incident happened on Tuesday at the notorious Mandlenkosi High School in Ntuzuma, Durban, dubbed the “lawless school”.
Thabani succumbed to his injuries at school in full view of other learners who were in the middle of their examinations and teachers, leaving them traumatised and shaken.
His grieving mother, Goodness Vilakazi, said she didn’t know how she would survive without her child.
“He used to tell me he was going to build a big house when he finished school,” she told Scrolla.Africa.
“The teachers who came here said they must tell me that he loves me.”
Vilakazi is unemployed and lives in a two-room shack in Ntuzuma.
“I survive by washing people’s clothes.I don’t even know where I will get the money to bury my child,” she said.
This is the same school where a pupil was stabbed to death in 2012 for sitting at the “wrong desk”.
Fed up with the bloody altercations at the school, the community and police teamed up and searched learners. The raid uncovered weapons including table knives, guns, and drugs.
Ward councillor Musa Thusi said many schools in the area had rival gangs.
“We need more police visibility. These learners are thugs and they must be treated as such,” said Thusi.
Community leader, Thabani Cele, said their efforts to curb the violence have failed to yield results.
“There are some community members who protect the learners who are thugs. But we will continue to fight because our children go to that school,” said Cele.
Police spokesperson Colonel Nqobile Gwala confirmed the killing.
She said police were still hunting for the suspect.
Pictured above: Thabani Vilakazi
