A parent of a prospective student was killed and 20 people were injured in a stampede at the University of Johannesburg on Tuesday morning, emergency services said.
"There were 20 injured patients and the female who died has been confirmed as the mother of one of the students," said Nana Radebe, spokeswoman for Johannesburg Emergency Management Services.
Two of the injured were in a critical condition in hospital, she said. One woman was critically injured with severe head and chest trauma.
Abandoned blankets, clothes and shoes — most of them wet from the overnight rain — were strewn on the pavement outside the Bunting Road entrance to the university.
Ambulances and police cars were parked at the entrance, and police and university security staff were not allowing anybody to pass.
Marie Muller, registrar, told the eNews television channel that the incident happened as students queued for last-minute applications to the tertiary institution.
The university received 5000 new applications on Monday following last week’s release of national matric results. On Tuesday morning, it was turning away people who were still outside the campus and trying to get in.
"The news that someone has died has shocked me," said Jane Monare, who had driven up from Bethlehem in the early hours of the morning with her daughter, who plans to study mechanical engineering. "I wonder why the university administration did not do something about this to avert this problem."
A total of 348117 pupils — a 70,2% pass rate — passed their matric exams last year. Of these, 24,3% obtained university entrance.
The Star newspaper reported on Tuesday that the University of Johannesburg was one of the few tertiary institutions that took last-minute applications after the release of matric results.
On Monday, it said, a kilometre-long line of applicants had already formed outside the Bunting Road campus after some prospective students had camped near the main gate overnight.
Carol Mkhonto, from the Eastern Cape, had been about 300m from the main entrance before the stampede on Tuesday morning. She had tried to check the status of her application last week, but was told it was "not in the system", so she was making another attempt.
Ms Mkhonto said the trouble started when people who were returning for further study and newcomers were placed in the same registration queue.
"There was a stampede because of congestion, because the university put everyone who wanted to renew and the newcomers in the same queue," she said.
The university bills itself as one of the "largest, multi-campus residential universities in South Africa". Its students come from more than 50 countries in Africa and around the world.
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