South Sudan National Police Service on Wednesday afternoon clashed with students from the University of Juba protesting a hike in hostel fees.
Police officers stormed the girls’ hostels on campus on Wednesday afternoon and arrested several students.
Both the police and female students who spoke to Radio Tamazuj could not disclose the exact number of students taken into custody.
One of the students, who identified herself only as Angelia due to security reasons, told Radio Tamazuj, that the police stormed their hostels and started beating them brutally, leaving several with broken teeth, legs and minor injuries.
“The administration came with five pick-ups full of police officers, well-armed, they came to our hostel and started beating us, leaving some with broken teeth, legs and injured others, they were using pistols on us,” she said.
She said the university administration was forcing them to spend a huge amount of money without providing them with food and clean drinking water.
“The administration wants us to pay hostel fees without providing food, water and waste is all over the place, the hostel is dirty and they want us to pay this huge amount of money during this economic hardship.”
Another student, Mary (not her real name), said the Dean of Students Affairs introduced the new hostel fee last week, a decision, she said, they unanimously rejected.
“It was actually about hostel fees that was introduced by the Dean of Students Affairs. He came to the hostel and held a meeting with girls almost two weeks ago, saying that each student should pay 50,000 SSP as hostel fee and all the girls agreed not to pay because we don’t have it and some of us are struggling to pay school fees,” she said.
She said the hostel fees were increased from 20,000 SSP to 50,000 SSP.
She added the clashes started when the Dean of Students Affairs stormed the girls’ hostels with policemen to evict five girls they dismissed over refusal to pay the new fee.
Police Spokesman Maj Gen Daniel Justin confirmed the incident, but said the girls had been released upon the demand of the university legal advisor.
“When this happened it was reported to us and we sent our policemen and those students started throwing stones at their vehicles, injuring our forces. We arrested several girls and brought them to the police station, but the university’s legal advisor convinced us that it was an administrative issue. We have released them and have taken the wounded to hospital,” said Justin.
Efforts to reach the University of Juba administration were unsuccessful.
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