Zimbabwean students' union urges HK to deport Bona Mugabe

A students' union in Zimbabwe has called on Hong Kong to deport the daughter of President Robert Mugabe who is studying at a university in the city under an assumed name.

The Zimbabwe National Students Union petitioned Chinese diplomats after the Sunday Morning Post last month revealed that 20-year-old Bona Mugabe is an undergraduate at the University of Hong Kong.

Students in the poor African nation, which is in the grip of a spiralling economic crisis and political turmoil, said Mr Mugabe's daughter should be made to study in her home country where they claimed her father's regime had badly neglected schools and universities.

Ms Mugabe has been allowed to study in Hong Kong despite sanctions and travel bans against her father and members of his regime by many western countries, including Australia, which ejected the children of Mr Mugabe's cronies from its universities.

In a letter presented to the Chinese embassy in Harare, students' union spokeswoman Blessing Vavu said Mr Mugabe's daughter should come 'back home to suffer with other patriotic students studying in the state universities'.

She wrote: 'It is disheartening to note that the first family insolently sent daughter Bona Mugabe under an assumed name to the University of Hong Kong, China, to further her studies while students in Zimbabwe suffer.

'Colleges and universities in the country have failed to open since 2008 because of, amongst other reasons, exorbitant and dollarisation of fees, lecturers striking over poor remuneration, and the serious brain drain of staff resulting in students failing to sit for examinations.