Student riots close university in Sudan

KHARTOUM, Feb 28 (AFP) — Riots over several days at Gezira University Sudan in a dispute over student elections forced the authorities on Monday to order its indefinite closure, the vice chancellor said in a statement.

Vice Chancellor Ismail Hassan Hussein said the Deans Council, “in view of regretful incidents” during the past few days, decided to close down all the Gezira University’s faculties as of Monday.

The faculties are located in different towns in central Sudan’s Gezira State, with headquarters in Wad Medani, about 180 kilometres (110 miles) southeast of the capital Khartoum.

In one incident, students set ablaze education faculty buildings in Hassahisa and forced teachers to evacuate buildings, the official said.

Other students detained the dean and lecturers at the economics faculty in Hilaliah, while at another campus students staged a sit-in and prevented their colleagues from entering lecture halls.

The students’ union has been barred for nine years but the university planned to restart it.

“Some circles exploited groups of the students for serving their goals and schemes by inciting riots and subversion”, the vice chancellor said, implicitly accusing opposition parties of being behind the incidents.

He said students believed to be affiliated to opposition parties objected to the date for elections which they said coincided with the examinations.