South Africa sends condolences after Virginia Tech massacre

18 April, 2007

The South African government has sent condolences to the bereaved families of students and lecturers who were shot at the Virginia Tech University in the United States, on Monday.

 “Our heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved families,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said.

 A student shot and killed two lecturers and 30 students before killing himself on campus in the town of Blacksburg, early on Monday morning.

 Two people were shot dead in an initial shooting at around 7.30am in a campus dormitory and another 30 were killed in the university’s engineering faculty two hours later.

“This is a very shocking event which does highlight some serious dysfunctionality in many societies around the world,” said Deputy Minister Pahad.

“We hope that the necessary lessons will be learnt from such tragedies that are becoming an increasing phenomenon in many countries in the Western world.”

US President George Bush and his wife Laura were among the mourners who attended a memorial service for the deceased on Tuesday.

Police identified 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho, a legal US resident from South Korea and an English major at the university, as the shooter.

Police say it appears the young man, described as a “troubled loner” had acted alone in the shootings.

Classmates and professors have since described his written work as filled with violent imagery.

His creative writing teacher is said to have referred him for counselling at one point.