Update (August 5, 2021): A judge ordered all 18 students accused of playing a role in the hazing death of a Black student at a university in Belgium to stand trial, ABC News reported.

Sanda Dia, a 20-year-old son of Senegalese immigrants, died in Dec. 2018 during an initiation ritual at the prestigious Catholic school KU Leuven University in Belgium’s northern region, as Blavity previously reported. Dia was forced to drink excessive amounts of alcohol, fish oil and sit in freezing water during a hazing rampage to enter the elite student fraternity called Reuzegom.

“After the Reuzegom student initiation ritual, it was immediately clear that the ritual was in all respects contrary to what KU Leuven expects from its students,” the university said.

#sandadia liefde heeft geen kleur maar introducties voor managementposities in #vlaanderen wel waardoor hij zich min of meer gedwongen voelde ondanks zijn uitstekende punten om voor de connecties toch bij zo'n elitaire #reuzegom aan te sluiten #racisme
#blm
pic.twitter.com/UUow68KafM

— Vlaamse Geuzen (@v_geuzen) August 5, 2021

According to the Brussels Times, Dia died from a combination of hypothermia and acute intoxication, which was exacerbated by consuming high-salt fish oil, after being taken to the hospital.

Since the incident, the university has reprimanded the students and officially discontinued the Reuzegom organization. Some students were suspended and were unable to complete their degrees, while others were suspended and allowed to continue their studies.

According to attorneys Nathalie Buisseret and David Dendoncker, the students involved, regardless of what role they played, are equally culpable and will face charges of manslaughter, intentional administration of harmful substances resulting in death, degrading treatment and culpable negligence.

A trial date for the students has not yet been scheduled.

Original (October 7, 2020): A prestigious Catholic university in Belgium is facing accusations of racism from the family of a Black student killed during a 2018 hazing ritual reports The New York Times.

The horrifying details in the case and the lack of consequences for the white students involved has roiled the country's simmering racial issues and highlighted the reemergence of far right, white supremacist groups in Belgium's northern region.

Sanda Dia, the 20-year-old son of Senegalese immigrants, made his family proud when he was admitted to the prestigious Catholic University of Leuven, also known as K.U. Leuven. His father, Ousmane Dia, came to Belgium in 1994 and spent his life working at a port and trucking factory.

“It was a dream for me,” Ousmane Dia told The New York Times of his son's admittance to K.U. Leuven.

In his third year studying civil engineering, Sanda Dia decided to join Reuzegom, a fraternity akin to the ones seen across the United States and other countries. The fraternity is comprised of children of some of the country's wealthiest Dutch elite.

He believed the fraternity would give him connections and access to the sons of Belgium's upper class and improve his job prospects once he left school. But his involvement in the fraternity would eventually prove fatal.

On Dec. 4, 2018 — along with two other pledges who were white — Dia was forced to drink alcohol until he passed out, gulp down fish oil until he vomited, swallow a live goldfish and stand in an icy ditch.

The New York Times confirmed media reports that said during the ordeal, members of Reuzegom peed on Dia as he laid unconscious. The next morning, the group of 18 Reuzegom members took the three pledges to a cabin in the woods in Vorselaar, where they were forced to dig a ditch, fill it with ice and stand in it.

They forced the three to bite the heads off of mice that were alive and yelled slurs at Dia during the entire ordeal. They forced Dia to stay in the ditch the longest. WhatsApp messages obtained by police show that they had to drag him out of the ditch. His death, of multiple organ failure, was deemed an accident.

Another video taken right after Dia's death shows the members of Reuzegom screaming, "Congo is ours” at a Black homeless man they passed by, a reference to Belgium's long history of violent terrorism and colonialism in Africa.

As soon as the Reuzegom members realized Dia had died, they deleted all of their text messages, took down their Facebook and Instagram pages, and cleaned out the cabin they had rented out, according to Belgian news outlet Nieuwsblad. Investigators noted that it was strangely clean, and text messages obtained by police show the 18 fraternity members panicking and asking what they should do to make it look like they did not kill Dia.

The 18 students involved in Dia's death were never suspended and were only asked to write a term paper on the history of hazing, in addition to 30 hours or community work.

"They thought, ‘He’s just some Black guy.’ We are powerful and nothing can happen to us,’” his father Ousmane Dia told The New York Times.

The fraternity has been disbanded but, due to the wealth of its members, its existence has largely been removed from the internet. Prosecutors in Belgium has recommended a variety of charges including involuntary manslaughter, degrading treatment and neglect, but many of the students have already graduated or have been allowed to keep taking classes online.

Initially treated as an accident, local press did not report on Dia's death as one which was intentional. But since 2018, more information has been revealed about the fraternity, its members and their history with racism.

During another incident in Dia's pledge term, he was called a racial slur and forced to clean up after white members. Photos obtained by Belgian news outlet De Morgen show Reuzegom members wearing Ku Klux Klan robes and videos have been released showing members reciting a speech with the words “our good German friend, Hitler.”

Other news outlets in Belgium, like De Standaard, said police found text messages showing the members of Reuzegom, who are the sons of Belgium's judges, business leaders and politicians, asking for help in covering up what happened to Dia'.

“This was not an accident,” Sanda's brother, Seydou De Vel, told The New York Times.

The case has become emblematic of the country's furthering descent into far-right, white supremacist leanings in recent years. Historically, Belgium is well known for its outlandishly violent reign over multiple regions in Africa.

The New York Times noted that this summer, the country was forced to take down a few statues of King Leopold II, the leader of Belgium in the 1880s at the height of their reign of terror in the area that is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

While the country has said it has moved on from its violent past, studies have shown that African immigrants to Belgium still face overwhelming racism, particularly in the northern regions of the country. In recent months, multiple protests in the northern Flanders region have included Nazi flags and imagery, according to The Brussels Times.

The rise in racism has coincided with longstanding local disputes between the northern and southern regions of the country. The north, populated mostly by people of Dutch descent, has long wanted to separate from the south, which is populated by French communities. The dispute between the two sides has taken a turn toward racism in recent years, with northern political parties promoting hateful rhetoric toward immigrants and Muslims.

Kenny Van Minsel, a former president of the campus student association, told The New York Times that the far-right views had slowly been seeping into the campus culture and that Reuzegom were known for their bigotry.

“Their argument was that Black people should work for white people. They treated him like an object," Van Minsel said.

None of the 18 students involved in Dia's death have been named by police and the school has defended its actions by saying they did not know all of the facts of the case until recently.

K.U.-Leuven

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