Africans China

As African-Chinese tensions flared at campuses across China on Wednesday, African nations pressed an international diplomatic response to disturbances that began here Christmas Eve.

A Ugandan studying at Zhongshan Medical Science University in Canton committed suicide last week by jumping from a dormitory window, the official New China News Agency said Monday. It said the student, Nsubuga David Mugwanya, 26, had been depressed because of financial difficulties and failures in exams.

Chinese police stripped a number of African students and tortured them with electric batons outside the dining hall of a guest house where they had been held for five days, according to allegations made Monday by some of the students. "We have heard that they were made to walk almost naked in the cold as police poked them with electric batons," Gobo Bio Mamah, a diplomat from Benin, told a Western reporter in discussing the Saturday incident. "It appears to be torture."

Outside the foreign students' dormitory at Hehai University stands a new iron fence, a monument of sorts to the determination of university authorities to keep Chinese women away from African men. The iron structure also can be seen as a reminder of a struggle by African students at Hehai to preserve some semblance of a normal life in a puritanical, closed society that treats them as the ultimate outsiders.

A 10-day standoff between foreign students and Chinese authorities at an isolated guest house outside Nanjing ended Thursday when 45 African students, the last in a group that originally numbered about 140, returned to Hehai University. Chinese authorities, meanwhile, announced that three African students are being punished for allegedly instigating the Christmas Eve clash on the Hehai campus that sparked the affair and that three Chinese also have been detained in connection with the incident.

Chinese police Saturday forcibly removed many students from among a group of about 130 primarily African foreign students at from a suburban guest house where they had been held since Monday. Four were detained by police, at least 15 were returned to their campuses, 50 or more remained confined at the facility, and others were taken to unknown destinations, according to sources among foreign students and Chinese officials.

A confrontation between at least 50 foreign students, primarily Africans, and Chinese authorities continued Sunday at an isolated suburban guest house, educational officials said. A spokesman for Hehai University, scene of a Christmas Eve clash that ultimately led to the continuing guest-house standoff, said Sunday morning that the school's president was scheduled to visit the facility later to talk with the students from Hehai who were still being held there.

African envoys flew to the eastern city of Nanjing on Friday to meet with black students and Chinese officials in a bid to ease racial tension after a recent clash. After a long delay in the snow-bound Chinese capital, Beijing-based envoys from eight African countries left for Nanjing, 600 miles to the south, diplomats said. "They will meet the authorities at Hehai University, and they should see the students who are still in detention," said an African diplomat.

A Ugandan studying at Zhongshan Medical Science University in Canton committed suicide last week by jumping from a dormitory window, the official New China News Agency said Monday. It said the student, Nsubuga David Mugwanya, 26, had been depressed because of financial difficulties and failures in exams.

A group of mostly African foreign students being held in isolation at a suburban guest house includes some who are under detention and may face criminal charges arising out of a Christmas Eve campus brawl, Chinese officials said Thursday. But the vast majority of the approximately 140 students at the guest house are free to return to their campuses whenever they wish, according to Huang Jie, a spokesman for the Jiangsu provincial government.

African envoys flew to the eastern city of Nanjing on Friday to meet with black students and Chinese officials in a bid to ease racial tension after a recent clash. After a long delay in the snow-bound Chinese capital, Beijing-based envoys from eight African countries left for Nanjing, 600 miles to the south, diplomats said. "They will meet the authorities at Hehai University, and they should see the students who are still in detention," said an African diplomat.

A 10-day standoff between foreign students and Chinese authorities at an isolated guest house outside Nanjing ended Thursday when 45 African students, the last in a group that originally numbered about 140, returned to Hehai University. Chinese authorities, meanwhile, announced that three African students are being punished for allegedly instigating the Christmas Eve clash on the Hehai campus that sparked the affair and that three Chinese also have been detained in connection with the incident.

As African-Chinese tensions flared at campuses across China on Wednesday, African nations pressed an international diplomatic response to disturbances that began here Christmas Eve.

Chinese police stripped a number of African students and tortured them with electric batons outside the dining hall of a guest house where they had been held for five days, according to allegations made Monday by some of the students. "We have heard that they were made to walk almost naked in the cold as police poked them with electric batons," Gobo Bio Mamah, a diplomat from Benin, told a Western reporter in discussing the Saturday incident. "It appears to be torture."

A confrontation between at least 50 foreign students, primarily Africans, and Chinese authorities continued Sunday at an isolated suburban guest house, educational officials said. A spokesman for Hehai University, scene of a Christmas Eve clash that ultimately led to the continuing guest-house standoff, said Sunday morning that the school's president was scheduled to visit the facility later to talk with the students from Hehai who were still being held there.

Chinese police Saturday forcibly removed many students from among a group of about 130 primarily African foreign students at from a suburban guest house where they had been held since Monday. Four were detained by police, at least 15 were returned to their campuses, 50 or more remained confined at the facility, and others were taken to unknown destinations, according to sources among foreign students and Chinese officials.

Many African students under confinement at a suburban guest house after campus racial clashes have refused to reveal their identities and remain in confrontation with authorities, an education official said Friday. Ye Chunsheng, vice director of the Jiangsu Province Educational Commission, painted a picture of a small number of alleged troublemakers exerting control over most of the other students being held incommunicado at the facility.

Many African students under confinement at a suburban guest house after campus racial clashes have refused to reveal their identities and remain in confrontation with authorities, an education official said Friday. Ye Chunsheng, vice director of the Jiangsu Province Educational Commission, painted a picture of a small number of alleged troublemakers exerting control over most of the other students being held incommunicado at the facility.

A group of mostly African foreign students being held in isolation at a suburban guest house includes some who are under detention and may face criminal charges arising out of a Christmas Eve campus brawl, Chinese officials said Thursday. But the vast majority of the approximately 140 students at the guest house are free to return to their campuses whenever they wish, according to Huang Jie, a spokesman for the Jiangsu provincial government.