Some idyllic cottages in the middle of the countryside on the outskirts of Antwerp, Belgium, witnessed Sanda Dia’s horrible agony. To get into an exclusive fraternity at the Belgian Ku Leven University, she had to dig a hole, fill it with ice water and, in the middle of December, bathe half-naked. All while urinating on him, making him eat live fish, mouse toast and forcing him to drink fish oil.

It was the culmination of 48 hours of ‘hazing’, which the Belgian press has reconstructed. The day before, Sanda and two other young men who wanted to become full members of the fraternity had to take a series of tests. Every time they failed one of those challenges, they had to drink. Despite being close to losing consciousness, they denied him access to water to alleviate the effects of alcohol.

The next day the young people went to the aforementioned rural cabins, where everything went off the rails. Sanda fainted and the young people ended up asking for an ambulance for him. When she arrived at the hospital, his body temperature was 27ºC and she had a large amount of salt in her blood due to the oil they had made her drink.

Sanda’s family continues to demand justice. Because, as the tragic accident has been investigated, some racist details have become known. Sanda was a young black man trying to get into a frat house of rich white kids.who joked about the Ku Klux Klan or Hitler and that days later they recorded a video laughing at a homeless person to whom they shouted “The Congo is ours” – the Democratic Republic of the Congo was under Belgian control for almost half a century and half of its population was massacred.

In addition, the fathers and mothers of the members of the brotherhood, which has already been dissolved and which was called Reuzegom, are children of influential people in Antwerp society: businessmen, politicians or judges. In fact, the case had to change courts because one of the 18 defendants is the son of a judge from Antwerp, in charge of the courtroom where the matter would reach in case of appeal.

Sanda’s death also outraged the flemish society, which is facing issues of racism and a rise in the far right. The 18 defendants, whose trial is resuming today, are not even charged with involuntary manslaughter and administration of poisonous substances resulting in death because they have not confessed who made Sanda drink the oil. That is why the maximum penalty they face will no longer be 15 years, but 4 and fines of up to 8,000 euros.