Student killed, dozens injured in Sudan’s capital

A student was killed, and dozens of others wounded in clashes at the Sharg El Nil University in Khartoum on Wednesday. In El Duweim, White Nile state, 27 students were evicted from the Bakht El Rida University.

Feisal Bakheet Omar, one of the injured students, told Radio Dabanga that about 150 militant students of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), backed by university guards, attacked a number of Darfuri students who were having a meeting of the Darfur Student Association at the campus.

“They attacked us with metal bars, crutches, and machetes. Dozens of students were wounded, seven of them seriously. One of the assailants, Mohamed Awad El Karim, Secretary-General of the National Islamist Students Movement [student wing of the NCP], was killed,” he said.

“The NCP students also torched the premises of the Darfur Students Association.”

Bakht El Rida University

In El Duweim, White Nile state, security forces beat several students in the area of El Ghaba, near the Faculty of Agriculture of the Bakht El Rida University, during a graduation ceremony on Tuesday. Seven students were briefly detained.

The management of the University evicted 27 students, and demanded them to pay SDG10,000 ($1,667) each, because they had refused to appear before a management committee investigating the clashes on Sunday. One of the affected students told Radio Dabanga that they consider the eviction “unfair”.

A number of students had started a sit-in at the campus on Thursday, in protest against the deteriorating study environment, and the management’s insistence to hold a graduation ceremony in the morning instead of the evening.

After four days, police and security forces raided the university, and dispersed the students with batons and tear gas. A number of university offices were torched. Dozens of students were detained.