‘He Ran Mad’ on Chinese Campus : Uganda Student Takes Life

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. But an African student at the school, reached by telephone from Beijing, said it appeared that the suicide Friday may have been related to paranoia provoked by recent anti-African disturbances in the East China city of Nanjing.

A Christmas Eve campus clash between Africans and Chinese at Hehai University in Nanjing led to rock-throwing attacks on the foreign students’ dormitory and anti-African street demonstrations. This led in turn to the isolation of about 140 foreign students at a suburban guest house for periods ranging from five to 10 days.

Shortly before his suicide, Mugwanya “seemed kind of paranoid,” according to the African student at Zhongshan Medical Science University, who chose not to be identified.

“He was talking about the Chinese wanting to arrest him, wanting to take him away,” the student said. “He said, ‘They’re taking people from Nanjing now. They’re coming for me too.’ This is kind of crazy talk. We didn’t take him seriously. But now he is dead.”

“He ran mad, that’s why he jumped,” he said. “But why he ran mad--that we don’t know.”