Sudanese students attack US aid workers in Juba

March 11, 2008 (JUBA) — Sudanese students attacked two U.S. aid workers and set fire to their office in a row over college fees and graduation at an institution the aid group was helping to run, an official with the group said on Tuesday.

The two members of U.S. Christian charity Samaritan’s Purse were beaten by 28 male and female students from the teacher training college on Saturday morning, Samaritan’s Purse education programme coordinator Lago Joseph said.

They were evacuated from the town of Julud in Sudan’s South Kordofan region to neighbouring Kenya for treatment.

The students were angry over a rise in college fees and the news that some of them were not going to graduate, Joseph said.

All 28 were currently in police custody.

“The two people … are now in a stable condition in Nairobi but our office is completely trashed,” Joseph said.

(Reuters)