A 15-year-old schoolboy was stabbed to death at Ned Doman High School in Athlone after a classroom fight that spilled over into the street after school.
Marawaan Blackenberg bled to death in a garden near Ned Doman High School in Athlone on Thursday, after being attacked by fellow pupils who allegedly kicked and stabbed him.
He was buried on Friday from the mosque in Hazendal.
Five of his schoolmates were expected to appear in the Athlone magistrate's court on Friday.
Police confirmed that the boys, aged between 16 and 19, were arrested at their homes in Langa and Gugulethu on Thursday night.
Now members of the Bokmakierie community are claiming Marawaan's death may have had racial implications.
The provincial department of education said its greatest challenge was to ensure racial and social cohesion at Ned Doman High School in Athlone.
The deputy director in the education department, John Linus, said a delegation of senior officials had visited the school today to deal with the situation.
There was a lot of sadness among the teachers and pupils, who were very traumatised. School psychologists had been brought in to counsel pupils.
Meanwhile the circumstances that led to the death of the young learner must be fully investigated and after the investigation the department will issue a full report, Linus said.
The greatest challenge now is to ensure racial and social cohesion at the school.
Early on Friday, a crowd of angry parents confronted police outside the gates and complained of racial friction at the school.
Thursday's stabbing followed a row between Grade 9 boys.
Witnesses said that as many children watched, pupils had held Marawaan down and then kicked him and stabbed him three times. He bled to death.
The trouble began shortly after 2pm on Thursday.
A Grade 9 pupil and friend of Marawaan's, who gave his name as Raymond, said: This boy came from the class next door and told us to shut up, because we were a bit noisy in the class.
When he told the other pupil to leave the classroom and mind his own business, the other boy had smacked him in the face.
Marawaan came to my assistance and smacked the boy across the face, Raymond said.
The argument subsided and the other boy returned to his class.
Raymond said that after school, the boys had been walking home down Bolton Road when the boy from the other class and three friends threw a volley of bricks at him and Marawaan.
I was hit in the back by one of the bricks, and then these guys cornered Marawaan in the road.
Three of them held his hands behind him, and pushed his head down. They then kicked him and stabbed him. I kicked one of the boys, but they just stabbed him, first in the neck, then in the shoulder, and finally in the chest, said Raymond.
Raymond and other pupils alleged the other boys had shouted racial epithets during the attack on Marawaan.
Then they fled.
A distraught Natasha Williams, a Grade 10 pupil, said Marawaan, bleeding profusely from his wounds, had stumbled down the road until she and another pupil went to his aid and laid him on the lawn of a house in Denchworth Street, where he bled to death.
His friend Curt was still talking to him and he tried to answer him, but could not speak, said Williams.
She said the incident had happened in full view of many pupils who were walking down the road.
It was a terrible thing to see how Marawaan was stabbed, and there were even two teachers nearby, who did not intervene.
His aunt, Ameena Rajap, has been a spokeswoman for Bokmakierie backyard residents who moved into the Spes Bona hostel and then tents in the grounds.
She alleged the attack was racially motivated. An overwrought Rajap shouted: He was 15 years old, and he was brutally murdered by blacks. They think nothing about taking a life.
