Manzini - A gay Swazi student who was tortured by Russian homophobes is back home, according to Swaziland government sources.
A film of the torture, which was placed online, went viral.
“While government was gathering information about his case, ‘Gadlela’ came home,” said government spokesman Percy Simelane. “Due to the trauma he suffered, he went to his family and neglected to contact government on his arrival (as is required for all students returning from study abroad).”
The government spokesman used the pseudonym for the student created by the Swazi media.
The 20-year-old man identified himself as Bonga in the 33-minute video, posted by the Russian anti-gay vigilante group Occupy Paedophilia.
He was studying at Shukhov State Technological University in Belgorod and was lured to a flat by the group, which had convinced him through a fake Internet exchange that he would be meeting another young man for a date.
The group claimed the student knew he was meeting a 15-year-old boy, but this cannot be verified because there is no evidence of the Internet exchange.
The student returned to Swaziland last week, before Occupy Paedophilia released the video.
Simelane said Swazi government social welfare workers visited the rural homestead where the student lived with his family.
In the torture video, a clearly terrified young man is seen being verbally and physically abused.
His tormentors mocked his skin colour and made him simulate fellatio with a bottle.
The student, who was identified as a South African in initial press reports, was apparently spared the sodomy that the group inflicted on other abductees.
Their victims included gays from Ukraine and Iraq, whose rapes were not seen but heard, including the victims’ screams, on videos posted online by Occupy Paedophilia.
According to LGBTQ Nation, an arrest warrant has been issued for Maxim Martsinkevich, the leader of the group.
However, Russian prosecutors are not filing charges of kidnapping, assault or rape against Martsinkevich. Instead, he is being sought for contravening Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code: incitement of ethnic and social hatred.
The student’s mother told the Swaziland media that Shukhov State Technological University phoned her to confirm her son had arrived home.
Describing him as traumatised, she said her son wished not to be disturbed. He would be returning to his studies in due course, she said, although not at Shukhov.
Swazi students studying in Russia have reported that they faced routine discrimination and hostility in the country because of their race and continent of origin.
Speaking about the experiences of the gay student, Deborah Kunene, a Swazi who has a same-sex Swazi partner, said: “There’s no question that he was lonely there. African students have a hard time in Russia. He answered an invitation to meet someone he thought he knew through the Internet.
“As a gay boy, he faced discrimination in Swaziland. Sadly, he learnt there are a lot of haters in the world. Gays do not have an easy time in Swaziland,” Kunene said.
“King Mswati says there is something unnatural about us and the nation must pray for us.” - Independent Foreign Service