A school brawl at a Cape Flats school was over entjies being smokkeled into the school, the principal says.
The knife fight between school boys and outsiders was filmed by learners at John Ramsay High School in Bishop Lavis on Tuesday.
The 53-second video, which has gone viral, shows two laaities wrestling and another youngster dressed in a white top and blue jeans can be seen stabbing at the learner with a knife.
Then two more groups start to exchange blows as the teenagers shout: “Hosh!”
Boys armed with bricks chase a school boy as an adult male tries to stop them, but they ignore him.
Principal Roshin Ramawoothar tells the Daily Voice a pupil was attacked by a former learner as the latter was trying to protect his “business turf”.
He says the ex-learner and his buddies jumped over the fence to confront the Grade 11 boy who was illegally selling entjies at school.
“No one was actually stabbed during the fight,” said Ramawoothar.
“The pupil sells cigarettes - that was news to everyone - and so the intruders jumped over to fight for his territory.
“The troublemaker is an ex-learner here. He left school three years ago, so his friends are selling cigarettes for him here.
“One of them was carrying a knife and they went to confront the learner,” he explains.
“The people who were around managed to break up the fight.”
The palie says he was in his office busy with the learners who were there to fetch their matric results.
“One of the matric 2020 learners was here to fetch his results and he found himself in the middle of this, trying to stop the fight.
“The moment we came out, they ran out of the school grounds.”
Ramawoothar states that the parents of all the learners involved were called in for a meeting.
“We had a talk in the presence of the police, CPF and other community leaders.
“Our learners gave their side of the story. Yesterday the police took the learners to the station to see if there are any programmes these kids can go into.”
He adds: “The police will patrol in the morning, during intervals and after school to ensure the safety of the pupils.”
Bishop Lavis Neighbourhood Watch member Sandra van der Westhuizen added they will assist: “We will have regular patrols to ensure the learners are safe all the time.”