Dr Hawa Marjan Abdullah, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Administration and Finance - COURTESY

University of Bahr el Ghazal was on Wednesday, August 16, closed indefinitely following a student protest over fee adjustment, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor has said.

Dr Hawa Marjan Abdullah says threats made by students against staff have forced the administration to close the higher learning institution.

She says the top administration and lecturers have been receiving threats from the students for days.

Dr Hawa added that they had been evacuated from the university campus.

According to her, the students closed down all offices, lecture halls and dormitories among others.

These among others left the administration with no choice but to close the university indefinitely.

Dr Hawa said the closure is to restore order and protect the lives and properties of everybody.

“There’s no solution because the students refused whatever intervention. We discussed with them a lot and we even said now this one is not an increment but it’s only an adjustment according to the US dollar rate and then the inflation in the market,” Dr Hawa said.

“We told them that this amount you don’t even need to pay it at a go, you pay what you have now,  and then you will continue paying, but they refused completely,” she said.

“They [students] closed their minds and then they closed all the places and then there’s a lot of threats, yesterday we have to be evacuated from the area.”

“We have to be evacuated by the security, and right now we are outside the university, we cannot go because they have threatened even the top administration.”

“Right now the university will not be able to operate because the students themselves have closed the university actually, so what will the administration do accept to close it even.”

The students went on a two-day strike protesting the new tuition fee increment.

The strike first started on Tuesday at the main campus in Wau.

Recently, the university increased fees, sparking commotion among students who said the new fee rise was too high.

The new tuition structure shows that a student of economics who used to pay 40,000 pounds, will now pay 150,000 pounds, while a student of medicine who was paying 50,000 pounds is required to pay 175,000 pounds.