Sudanese students torch offices to protest teacher strike

KHARTOUM, Nov 12 (AFP) — High school students in the capital of Sudan’s Blue Nile State protested teacher strikes by attacking and setting fire to offices of the state’s education ministry, police said Wednesday.

Students in Ed-Damazine were Tuesday protesting the school closures due to a strike by teachers protesting pay delays, Blue Nile police commissioner major general Mohamed Ahmed al-Jizouli said.

Police have contained the situation and arrested an unspecified number of students for involvement in the riots in the city southeast of Khartoum, authorities said.

The state’s security committee has since ordered the schools closed indefinitely, Jizouli said.

An unnamed local official said the students were instigated by “ill-intentioned” people into committing subversive acts which included torching a car, the Sudan Media Centre (SMC) reported from the state capital.

Clashes in late August at Gezira University 140 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Khartoum left four student demonstrators and three riot police wounded as students protested the deteriorating conditions of their boarding houses by damaging the education faculty’s offices.

Earlier that month, 20 engineering students were arrested in Khartoum for setting fire to a University of Sudan building to demand their engineering diplomas be upgraded to a full degree.