Deceased Upper Nile University Vice Chancellor, Dr. Marial Awou. (Courtesy).

The body of deceased Upper Nile Vice-Chancellor Dr. Marial Awou Yol was flown back to South Sudan on Friday as hundreds of mourners gathered at Juba International Airport to pay homage.

Professor Awou passed away on September 14 in India where he had been receiving medical treatment, according to a statement posted by the university. He died at the age of 65 years.

Family members, students and well-wishers dressed in black gathered near the airport terminal as the late professor’s coffin was being carried down from an Ethiopian Airline plane.

Upper Nile University has announced the suspension of lectures for Friday to honor Prof. Awou.

Dr. was also the former deputy minister of Finance and Planning and the dean of the School of Social and Economic Studies at the University of Juba.

In 1984, late Marial graduated from the University of Gezira in Sudan and obtained a bachelor’s degree in economics.

In 1992, he was awarded a Master of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee in the U.S.

Upon returning to Sudan, he resumed teaching as a lecturer in the College of Economics, University of Gerzira in Sudan.

In 1997, he received a government-funded scholarship to undertake a course of study leading to the Ph.D. degree in economics at the University of Putra Malaysia.

In 2002, the late Professor Awou was appointed an assistant professor in economics, before serving as a contract lecturer of economics at the University of Putra Malaysia for six years.

In 2009, he joined the World Bank as a senior consultant in monetary and exchange rate policies in the Central Bank of Sudan.

Prior to South Sudan’s independence in July 2011, the late was appointed as a state Minister of Finance in Sudan.

Following the secession, he served as deputy minister of Finance and Economic Planning in the first post-independence government of South Sudan.