Mozambique: Ragging in Unizambeze shocks academic community – Watch

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Mozambique: Ragging in Unizambeze shocks academic community – Watch

2:27 CAT | 19 Apr 2018

Miramar

A group of unidentified second year students carried out what they call a ‘baptism’ of incoming students in the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering of Universidade do Zambeze, in Mocuba, on the 10th of this month.

The ceremony which was illegal, although the students set up a committee and requested authorisation for the ceremony, which included acts of vandalism.

The ‘Caloiros’ were submitted to genuine torture, including smelling faeces and urine, with girls having their hair cut and being forced to adopt positions as if they were having sexual intercourse.

It was, in fact, a sorry scene which has stained both the faculty and its management.

Speaking to O País, Artemisia Nhantumbo said that what was experienced was not a baptism but a punishment.

“I never saw any ‘baptism’ like this. We were subjected to having faeces put in our nostrils, even sperm and urine. Imagine if there is someone who is HIV-positive among those who subjected us to such barbarities! We are certain to have been contaminated,” she said.

Quitéria Jorge, another student, said that she was subjected to a compulsory haircut. “They said that animals do not have hair, so we had to just obey. My hair was cut today and I’m going to do what? I went home and I just started crying,” she said.

Carimo Riham, a representative of the panel that organised the baptism, said that they had submitted a letter to the college board, but the event was not authorised because they sent it to the pedagogical sector by mistake.

Riham acknowledges that they acted without authorisation, but said that what happened was unplanned. According to him, some second year students who were to carry out the baptism of freshmen arrived drunk and began to act in a disorderly manner.

Gilberto Marques, a representative of the student group which says such ‘baptism’ is illegal, said that the college annually held baptism ceremonies for freshmen, but that what happened on the 10th does not call into question the good name of the college. The nucleus was not part of the alleged ceremony and much less were they authorised by the board.

The management of the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering of Mocuba has already reacted to what happened. The director, Dinis Gimo, says that he did not authorise any student ceremony, and that the action was unsanctioned. He says that on the day of the baptism, the second year students barred access to the faculty to distract the rest of the academic community and teachers and set about their disorderly actions.

Gimo says that, as the responsible party, he was surprised to see access to the area where the baptism was being held illegally closed off when he arrived at college on that day, and “immediately ordered life in college to return to normal”.

Meanwhile, the Provincial Director of Science Technology Technical and Vocational Education, Cardozo Meque, has promised that the students who carried out the alleged actions will be expelled.

By Jorge Marcos