“Even though break had ended, they did not go back to their classes, they stayed to continued laughing at me. They eventually left me alone, but they couldn’t even lend me a hand. Nobody could help me that day.”
This is the re-encounter of a Grade 9 learner at Durban Academy High School, who was a victim of a bullying incident.
Fifteen-year-old Uthando Phiri was assaulted at the school’s premises during break.
Just before the school bell could ring signaling learners to return to class, unprovoked, he said the boy responsible came out of nowhere.
“He stood on top of a branch rocking on it and touching me with it. I then asked him what he was doing and he asked what was I going to do and he told me to get away. I then left,” he recalled.
However, the boy’s friend further instigated the fight – provoking him to not back down. A moment later, the boy was back in Phiri’s presence.
“He then came up to me and pushed me and at that moment, I started pushing back. He ran into me at full pace, I don’t know what he was trying to do. We started exchanging fists and about 20 seconds into it, he tripped me. His right knee was on top of my thigh and I could feel my leg break,” he recalled.
He said the boy continued throwing punches at him without realising that he had broken his leg. Next, he heard some Grade 11 learners talking about stopping the fight while others argued to leave them be. To add insult to injury, learners laughed at him throughout the entire ordeal.
“No one wanted to stop the fight, so I had to put an end to it by strangling him. I felt like I had no other choice. My leg hurt a lot, I could feel the bone going sideways, I don’t know how to explain it, but I could feel that the bone was broken.”
“He tried to wiggle from the strangulation to continue hitting me. Even after that, learners were still laughing at me. He ended up walking away without understanding what he had just done,” he said.
According to him, this was just the tip of the iceberg. He said it was not the first time that he was allegedly bullied by the same boy.
In fact, Phiri said he was a known bully among other learners, but he was teased the most by the boy. He said the bullying was a daily occurrence which he chose to not speak up about because it would further isolate him.
He said he was helped up by Grade 12 rugby players and their coach. He was taken to the school’s sick room where he would wait for over two hours in agony until the arrival of his mother.
He said he asked staff members at the school to call an ambulance numerous times, with his cries falling on deaf ears.
His aunt, Silindile, said the incident has been very traumitising to their family and they question where the teachers were during that time.
She added that her nephew was making promising strides in rugby and aspired to be the next Siya Kolisi.
“What most concerns us are stories we’ve read about children who eventually take their own lives as a result of bullying. Now we’re facing this issue from an inside point of view. It’s hard to even think that there are children who are this cruel.”
“Just the other day he was looking at his rugby boots, knowing he’ll never play again. The principal only called us two weeks ago to say that the other child’s mother wants to meet with us.”
“They do not recognise the seriousness of this issue. A child’s leg is broken. He can never play rugby ever again. Was he ever going to succeed in the sport? We don’t know that, but that is what he wanted for his future and it seems it was just snatched away from him just like that and nobody cares,” she said.
The school management said its staff is very proactive in matters of bullying. It said it follows procedure and protocol to the last bit to protect its learners.
It emphasised that such matters are dealt with immediately at the school and gets parents and the police involved.
“Even in our code of conduct, our mission statement states that we will not tolerate any bullying at the school. As with anything, we first have to investigate, get all the facts and then get the parents involved and if we think it is serious enough, then we get the police and the department involved.”
“We don’t cover things up. The issue has been hanging in the air because we’ve made contact with Uthando’s parents. We don’t understand why they would go to a newspaper. When we contact them, they never answer the phone.”
“We asked his mother to write a report and we have not received one. The department is aware of the incident. We are very shocked by the parents’ actions because the day the mother came to the school, she came in and everything was very amicable. We did what we could for the child, we waited for her to arrive, she took a long time to arrive and if that caused complications, it wasn’t our fault.”
“There were teachers present at the field during the incident and we have a roster to prove it. Teachers are on duty at every break, they might not have been at that particular spot of the incident. It cannot be expected that every child or every group of children will be supervised, it is not how it works,” said management.
A comment from the Department of Education was not available at the time of publication.
