'My mom is no more,' UJ hopeful tells family

ALL Kgositsile Sekwena dreamed of was studying medicine at the University of Johannesburg.

Instead, the prospective student yesterday watched helplessly as his mother died in his arms.

Gloria Sekwena, 47, had, like thousands of other parents and young school leavers, queued outside UJ's entrance for several hours in the hope of submitting a late application.

But Sekwena - a nurse who travelled from London on December 29, where she and her husband, Joseph, have worked for several years - will not see her eldest son realise his dreams.

Yesterday morning she became the victim of a stampede that claimed her life and seriously injured 16 others.

Described as "avoidable", Sekwena's death shortly after 7am sent shockwaves throughout the country and resulted in the university's vice-chancellor, Ihron Rensburg, making concessions to allow about 6000 more would-be students to submit late applications.

At the same time, Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande scrambled for solutions on how to deal with more than 180000 first-year students in 2012.

Yesterday, Kgositsile, 18, was overwhelmed by grief, with family members trickling onto the university campus, all battling to come to terms with the loss of their "jovial" mother, sister or aunt.

Some relatives, from as far afield as Kimberley and Swaziland, sobbed uncontrollably, hugging each other and screaming: "No! No! Oh no, God!"

A sobbing Kgositsile was consoled at the university's centre for psychological services and career development, where he was tranquillised by a nurse and attended to by a psychologist.

An emotional family member recounted the frantic call from a "confused" Kgositsile, who screamed: "My mum is unconscious. I need help. Please come."

"We immediately switched on the TV and heard that someone had died. We didn't know what to think," said the relative, who did not want to be named.

"The next minute he called back again, crying, saying: 'My mother is no more'."

A few hours after being treated with tranquillisers, Kgositsile gave family members a chilling account of his mother's final minutes.

"He said people started pushing and shoving, and that chaos erupted when someone jumped the fence to get into the university," the family member said.

"He said he fell to the side and his mother was still in the crowd. People were stepping on her and pushing her.

"He was looking for his mother and the moment he found her she was unconscious already.

"She died within minutes," said the relative before breaking down in tears. "He just said, 'I don't have a mother any more'."

Sekwena is said to have sustained "no real visible injuries" but suffered internal bleeding and shock.

The relative said family members remembered their last conversation with Sekwena, in which she told them not to come with her to the registration in case they got hurt.

Yesterday, shortly after 4pm, UJ officials escorted Kgositsile and his relatives to the mortuary to identify Sekwena's body. Joseph Sekwena is said to be making travel arrangements to get to South Africa on the first available flight.

The couple's other son, Mosimane, who will be in Grade 12 this year and was on a school camp, is said to have learned of his mother's death on Facebook.

Sophie Letaba and her daughter, Tshepiso, from Limpopo, were also trapped in the crowd.

"I battled to breathe when the crowd was pushing and screaming. I thought I was going to die. But God was with us," said Letaba.

The mother and daughter had started queuing at about 2pm on Monday. Tshepiso had applied for the BCom accounting course last year but was rejected. She was reapplying to study social work.

"I wish I could just leave everything and go back home.

"We are all scared that this might happen again," she said, searching through the blankets, shoes, camp chairs, umbrellas and even hair weaves lying along the palisade fence.

The Times understands that the university has offered to pay for Kgositsile's tuition until he graduates.

Said Rensburg: "It's a sad day [when] a mother, who had sacrificed so much for the education of her son, loses her life trying to assist her son to get an excellent tertiary education at UJ.

"Our condolences to her family and friends and our thoughts go to the other applicants who were injured."