LJM secretary-general hosts evicted Darfuri students

The Darfuri women students, who occupied the Khartoum office of the Darfur Regional Authority (DRA) on Monday, have moved to the residence of Bahar Idris Abu Garda, Secretary-General of the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM).

“About 40 Darfuri students moved to Abu Garda’s house on Monday evening, until a definite solution for our housing problem has been found,” Saadia Yousef, one of the students, told Dabanga.

The women students occupied the DRA office on Monday morning, as they would have to leave the accommodation rented for them by benevolent Sudanese at the end of this month.

70 Darfuri students were violently evicted by security forces from El Zahra boarding house in Khartoum on 5 October last year, after they had refused to meet the request of the National Endowment Fund for Students to vacate the dormitory, as the buildings needed renovation. The students said they do not have family in Khartoum and cannot afford more expensive accommodation. The boarding house was hosting 150 women students from Darfur.

Yousef said that mediator Abdelhameed Musa Kasha, former governor of East Darfur and South Darfur, told them that he is working on a solution for the housing problem of about 250 Darfuri women students in Sudan’s capital, in cooperation with the DRA and the students’ fund.