CORRECTION: ‘UP first-year student commits suicide’

The Citizen would like to apologise for the factual inaccuracies in an article titled ‘UP first-year student commits suicide‘.

The headline of the article was misleading, as the student in question did attempt suicide, but the attempt was unsuccessful. The Citizen’s article did not make it clear that the student survived the suicide attempt, leaving our readers to believe the student died.

The Citizen further apologises  for the sentence in the story: “Students blame the house mother for allegedly going back to bed after the parents of the student showed her the suicide note informing her of the student’s intentions.”

The above-quoted sentence gives readers the impression that the house mother is to blame for the suicide attempt. In fact, the University of Pretoria says the house mother contacted the parents following the incident and also visited the student in hospital.

While some of the students alleged the students affected were not given enough counselling, the university explained it made counselling available to all students affected and continues to do so.

“Counselling was offered to the students at Jasmyn, and 10 students identified by the house mother as directly affected were individually called to offer counselling,” it said.