There has been a heavy police presence around Wits for the past three weeks.
Violence has erupted at Wits University once more after police reportedly opened fire on protesting students earlier this morning.
The university’s plan was to re-open today and resume classes after being forced to shut down by #FeesMustFall protesters for the past two weeks.
Student protesters gathered from the early hours of this morning to plan action against the lack of commitment by Wits to implement a plan for fee-free education.
However, a peaceful march that assembled was reportedly attacked by police on campus. Police, who were seemingly not provoked, fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas at students.
Advocate Dali Mpofu and former SRC president Mcebo Dlamini subsequently negotiated with police to allow a peaceful student march to continue onto campus.
Our reporter Ra’eesa Pather is on the ground at Wits, and shared these videos.
A few students approached the police after a brief moment of violence to hand over flowers to them. They walked up to the police cherry blossoms in hand, to show they were being peaceful. Most of the officers would not accept the flowers. Students then used empty shell casings as vases to spell out their intentions to the officers.