Friday, December 17, 2004. Page 4.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com
Detained Cameroon Student Dies
By Sergei Venyavsky
The Associated Press ROSTOV-ON-DON — A Cameroon student died after being in the custody of immigration officials for about 26 hours, prompting a protest by hundreds of foreign students at Rostov-on-Don State University.
Students, primarily from African countries, are calling on university officials to force authorities to quickly determine the cause of death for Clarice Gerardin Mbango, who had been a journalism and philology student at the school since last year.
Mbango died at a hospital Dec. 9 in the nearby town of Shakhti after lapsing into a coma, doctors said.
Mbango had been taken into custody as an illegal immigrant two days earlier, after she had been expelled from the university for not showing up for classes at the beginning of the fall semester.
Alla Bespalova, an administrator at the university’s journalism department, said Wednesday that Mbango appeared at the school in November seeking to enroll but by that time university administrators had already canceled her student registration — and her student visa status.
After being detained by police Dec. 7, Mbango was ordered to leave the country and sent to an immigration processing center in Shakhti. On the evening of Dec. 8, she was taken to a hospital in an ambulance after she said she felt ill. She lapsed into a coma and died the next morning.
