Upper Nile University medical students demonstrating against studying in Khartoum [©Gurtong]
By Waakhe Simon Wudu
JUBA, 26th January 2012 [Gurtong] - Medical and Nursing students from Upper Nile University protested last Monday against an alleged silent government plan of referring them to study in Bahari University in Khartoum.
The students have spent 16 months at home since their return from Khartoum before South Sudan’s Independence on 9th July last year. They rejected plans to go back and study in Khartoum due to fears of mistreatment and forceful recruitment into militias among other reasons.
One of the protesting students, Amule Nikson who spoke to Gurtong at the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology said that they are demanding clarifications from the government on the matter.
“The demonstration is about our fate at the college of medicine and nursing. A ministerial order was issued earlier on that all the South Sudan’s Universities that were operating in Khartoum should be brought back to South Sudan, despite of all this, the college of medicine Upper Nile University has not been opened till date,” Nikson said.
“We have also learnt that our files have been transferred to the University of Bahari in Khartoum. When we visit the Ministry of Higher Education to seek clarifications, we were told to be patient. Patience hasn’t given us any results, so we are here to know what the Ministry is thinking about the University of Upper Nile,” Nikson continued.
“We don’t want to go to Khartoum because we are getting reports that Khartoum is forcefully recruiting the South Sudanese University students into militia groups; we don’t want to go and be forced to fight our own nation,” Khamis Joseph one of the students said.
“As South Sudanese we don’t want to go back to the North to be considered as foreigners and be mistreated again and yet we can be accommodated in some of the campuses here in our country,” Tut Tut one of the medicine students protested.
Gurtong tried to contact the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Higher Education Mr. Sibrino Farjala for his comments but he declined. “I’m not interested in talking to the media, this is an internal matter. Why do you need to broadcast it?” Farjala told Gurtong on phone.
According to unconfirmed reports, Upper Nile University had at least 402 students in the college of medicine and nursing. Some of the South Sudanese students have already reported in Bahari University. Meanwhile at least 200 students are still at home demanding to be admitted in the other four South Sudanese national universities.
In 2011, South Sudan stopped facilitating the students on transport and accommodation among other social amenities. This setback is unbearable to the students who fear to study in Khartoum.