A Grade 11 pupil from N’wamitwa outside Tzaneen is lucky to be alive after he was stabbed in the stomach.

Speaking from his Letaba Hospital bed, Louis Malungani, 21, a learner at Mbhekwana High School, said he was attacked because he didn’t know the whereabouts of his friend.

“It was during school breakfast when I went to a tuck shop to buy a soft drink. I found three learners waiting for me at the school gate and [they] demanded to know where my friends are. When I told them I don’t know they produced knives and started stabbing me,” he said.

Malungani said he grabbed a knife from one of his attackers. “After realising I was profusely bleeding, they ran away.”

He said he held his partly ripped stomach and walked to school officials for help.

Malungani said two of the attackers were from his school.

Fellow pupil Jabu Mathebula, 19, who witnessed the fight, said three people accosted Malungani and pushed him around.

“One of them challenged him to fight back in the absence of his friends who allegedly assisted him when he fought one of the learners in the Babanana village on Friday,” said Mathebula.

A school official, who asked to remain anonymous, said it was the first time such an incident happened at the school.

Department of education spokesman Sam Makondo said the department had launched an internal investigation into the matter.