The incident occurred during the third week of #FeesMustFall protests that have rocked universities across the country.
Authorities at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology are determined to get to the bottom of a very smelly problem: how 20 huge containers of human faeces were smuggled onto the premises.
On Wednesday, protesters, wearing hoods, disrupted the Swedish-South African Nobel Inspired Lecture Series that was held at the Bellville campus after flinging buckets of human faeces onto the floor of the main auditorium.
International guests at the function which had to be called off included Swedish ambassador, Cecilia Julin.
CPUT vice-chancellor, Dr Prins Nevhutalu, told the Mail and Guardian that the poo was not from toilets but “had already been treated at a sewage treatment plant”.
“I think it must have been transported in a truck or van. There’s absolutely no way that an individual can carry that poo in a car because it’s smells so somebody was delivering this to the students.”
Said Nevhutalu: “For me, it really has taken us many years back because part of my vision is to locate this university within some of the great institutions in the world. We think we can develop by associating ourselves with some of the excellent achievers.”
He said the Nobel lecture “was part of this journey”, adding: “I feel so sad because the police could not protect us even when they were aware there was an ambassador.”
He said the organisers could have chosen to host the lecture at Stellenbosch University or the University of Cape Town but that they chose CPUT “to acknowledge the strides that this university is taking towards becoming a great university”.