Fire at Rhodes Botanical Gardens as cops and students clash

27 October 2016 - 11:38 By TMG Digital

There was a fire in Rhodes University’s 163-year-old Botanical Gardens on Wednesday evening as police and students engaged in battles all over the Grahamstown campus. Independent student magazine Activate ‏@ActivateOnline tweeted: “The wooden bridge by the Botanical Gardens is on fire. #UCKAR”. The fire at the Botanical Gardens. #UCKARpic.twitter.com/l2P4E3S2gM— Activate (@ActivateOnline) October 26, 2016junkAnother student publication‚ Oppidan Press ‏@oppidanpress tweeted at around 8pm‚ that: “The fire has been put out in Bot gardens. #UCKAR #Fees2017”.(UCKAR is an acronym for University Currently Known as Rhodes.)The gardens – known to students as “Bots” – was given national monument status in 1994.The university‚ in a statement on Thursday morning‚ said: “In the early evening‚ just after 7pm‚ the bridge across the stream in the Botanical Gardens near the Grey Street entrance was set alight. The Fire Department attended to extinguish the fire but the bridge is gutted.”Also “gutted” was the tennis clubhouse‚ the university said‚ and “a petrol bomb was thrown into Alec Mullins Hall and a small section of the floor is scorched”.Rhodes management also said that “protesting students broke into the Hangar (an examination venue on campus)‚ the doors were ripped off their hinges and some desks inside were broken to make a fire”.“The fire making was unsuccessful‚” the statement added.On social media fires were also reported at barricades at the entrance to the Journalism Department‚ where‚ Activate reported‚ “Jane Viedge‚ a lecturer…has been shot in the back”; and rubble outside the Jan Smuts residence.Oppidan Press ‏@oppidanpress reported that people providing aid to the injured also came under attack: “Police have shot medics who had their hands up on the lawns by Founders Hall #Fees2017 #UCKAR”.The violence came as Rhodes management announced that “a decision has been taken to allow all students‚ both undergraduate and postgraduate‚ the option of writing examinations either now‚ in October/November 2016‚ or in January/February 2017”.The university statement acknowledged “that many students are experiencing high levels of stress and anxiety because of events experienced on campus in recent weeks” as a result of fees protests...

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