Johannesburg - No arrests have been made yet in the allegedly racial attack of an SA athletic champion Thabang Mosiako in Potchefstroom, North West police said on Sunday.
At the time of the incident last week, statements could not immediately be taken from those in the vicinity, as many were intoxicated, said Lt. Col. Adele Myburgh.
She said that the incident was one of numerous fights which took place during the North West University's Raising and Giving (RAG) activities weekend.
Myburgh said more information on the case of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, would be available on Monday when the investigating officers came back on duty.
Last week, 22-year-old Boston College student Mosiako was attacked and severely beaten just outside one of the NWU campuses in Potchefstroom, in what his friend has labelled a racially motivated attack.
According to Mosiako's friend Rantso Mokopane, 23, who posted a photo on Facebook of the champion in hospital after the attack, the attack left Mosiako with severe head trauma.
Mokopane told the Potchefstroom Herald that their attackers were university students. He explained that a confrontation started when he intervened after three of the men had sworn at a cashier.
After police broke up the fight, the men then reappeared near the Virgin Active and the apparent assault ensued.
NWU has said that they are probing the incident.
Meanwhile, the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) on Sunday in a statement condemned the alleged racist attack.
"The incident is a blight on our democracy and a stark reminder that much more needs to be done to eradicate racism that the architects of apartheid had sowed seeds of white supremacy that is still being nurtured in closed communities which socialise children, who are supposed to be born frees, into poisonous racial hatred," said spokesperson Jabu Mahlangu.
Mahlangu said that public institutions and their neighbourhoods should not be allowed to be bastions of white supremacists.
In his view, South Africa has been skirting around the problem of racism for far too long believing that it would somehow go away.
Mahlangu called for a deliberate programme that goes to the heart of the problem to be adopted and rolled out before racial relations are further polarised.
News24