Students barred entry to North Darfur city

Darfuri university students who arrived in El Fasher over the past days after their mass resignation from the University of Bakht El Rida in White Nile were stopped at the entrance to the North Darfur capital, for their “intentions to destabilise the city”.

They have left the university in El Duweim and a village south of Khartoum after mediation failed to solve the problems concerning more than 1,000 students who resigned in protest against the expulsion of fellow students.

Since Friday buses of students have left from El Duweim and Sheikh El Yagout, where hundreds of students were stranded after they were not allowed to enter Khartoum, and headed to El Fasher. Again, they were not allowed to enter the city and buses were stopped at the entrance of El Fasher.

Students wait outside the gate of El Fasher city (RD)

“We explained we wanted to return to our homes, and have no intentions otherwise.”

Yesterday a student told Radio Dabanga before travelling further to Nyala that commissioners of North Darfur, the head of the security apparatus, the army and police commanders came to them and informed them that the students had intentions “to destabilise the city through an external agenda which is not allowed”.

“We explained to the Commissioner that we wanted to return to their homes after resigning from the university because of our demands on the administration, and we have no external agenda and no intentions to destabilise the city.”

He said that after they were refused permission to stay overnight in the city they accepted to move to their states of origin. The Commissioner had told them buses would immediately take all students from the outskirts of El Fasher to their home state.

Other students have also left the outskirts of El Fasher on buses that were waiting for them.

Mediation attempts

Kamal El Zein, member of the students’ Crisis Management Committee, told Radio Dabanga on Sunday that “five rounds of mediations did not lead to any solution”. “As a result, the remaining Darfuri students, feeling they have been subjected to fierce racism by the university administration, began to leave for their homes today.”

The collective resignations by the Bakht El Rida students last week are part of their action to have fellow students readmitted to Bakht El Rida, and the charges of others who have been arrested on accusation of murder, to be dropped.

The ten detained students are accused of killing two policemen during student protests that were violently dispersed at the University of Bakht El Rida on May 9. The students also demand the reinstatement of 14 other students, expelled from the university after the protests and subsequent clashes.

A mass of students wanted to deliver a joint statement to government representatives in Khartoum last Tuesday, but their buses were stopped and their entrance barred after they decided to walk the remaining distance to Khartoum. The village leader of Sheikh El Yagout, south of the capital, offered them shelter in the meantime.

The Sudanese Congress Party, civil society initiatives and locals visited the stranded students and numbers of people delivered food. Amnesty International released an appeal to the Government of Sudan and the NISS to stop the blockade against the students, and ensure their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.