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Four South African primary school students will face a disciplinary hearing over a video that circulated online showing black students being auctioned off as slaves, authorities in Cape Town have told the BBC.
The video, which shows some students being held in cages while others do their bidding, sparked outrage when it was shared on social media on Friday.
The film was shot at Pine Forest High School and involved eighth grade students, which is the first year of middle school and students are around 14 years old.
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said it had launched an investigation into the incident.
It comes as two other schools in the country were accused of racism after anti-apartheid fighter Nelson Mandela was elected headmaster three decades ago, ending white minority rule.
“It is disturbing that after 30 years of democracy, such incidents are still happening.” The South African Human Rights Commission saidHe also said that these incidents are even more distressing when they happen in schools.
Four Pinelands High School students are believed to be behind the mock auction Currently suspended.
“The investigation is ongoing and nearing completion, with 24 students having been interviewed in the first two days (of school) since the allegations were made,” Western Cape Education Department spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said in a statement to the BBC on Wednesday.
She added: “We will also take action against other learners who may have breached certain provisions of the code of conduct.”
The incident first came to light after a student showed the video to his mother, Merle Potgieter, who then informed school management and local media.
She said her 14-year-old son, along with other black boys already in the cage, fought against the boy who tried to force him into the cage.
According to Ms. Potchet, the suspected assailants are all Coloured, a South African term for mixed race people.
In footage of the mock auction, the children can be heard shouting out various bids, with the highest being 100,000 rand ($5,400; £4,200).
“Once…twice…sold!” one boy can be heard shouting.
Ms Hammond said affected students would be prioritised for counselling support and all Year 8 students had attended debriefing sessions.
Slavery in the Cape dates back to the 1650s, when the Dutch colonized the peninsula and thousands of slaves were brought to the region from Southeast Asia, Madagascar and Mozambique.
Today, Cape Town, despite being a multi-ethnic city, is considered one of the most apartheid and unequal cities in South Africa.
This is a legacy of apartheid, when the white regime in the 1950s drove black and mixed-race communities out of town into segregated townships.
The apartheid government also entrenched a racial hierarchy that placed black people at the bottom.
On Tuesday, the chairperson of the parliamentary education committee, Macky Feeney MP, urged the school at the centre of the latest scandal to “consider implementing meaningful programmes that promote social cohesion and South African identity”.
“The question we should all seriously ponder is what would make someone, even a teenager, who has no idea where our country comes from, act racist. Of course, our children are not racist and should not be racist.” He said.
Meanwhile, the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party has called for the students to be suspended for at least two years and to perform “community service in a black area”.
It threatened to call for protests and close schools if the authorities’ final handling of the incident was not satisfactory.
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