Calm restored after tribal clashes at Irbid universities

By Raed Omari

IRBID - Calm was restored by Sunday evening at Yarmouk University, after a tribal clash erupted among students, which resulted in campus buildings being damaged, students and officials said yesterday.

The clash was a result of a quarrel that took place between two students from the Irbid Governorate towns of Sarih and Ramtha on Thursday, president of the university’s student union Mohammad Omari told The Jordan Times yesterday.

"Yesterday, this small quarrel quickly escalated into a major clash between two tribes," he said, adding that the two students urged others from their towns to back them up in the dispute.

According to Omari, students from Ramtha claimed that the head of security at the university, who is from Sarih, facilitated the entry of young people from his town into the university to take part in the brawl.

"A large number of students from Ramtha gathered on campus yesterday, demanding that the students from Sarih apologize and that the head of security be sent into retirement," the student union president explained, adding that union members talked to the protesters in order to achieve reconciliation through "democratic dialogue".

"The presence of the university president among the students calmed the tension," he said, adding that "the president took some students to his office and promised to form a committee to investigate the incident".

However, an eyewitness who preferred to remain unnamed, said several students "rushed into the economics faculty straight after the president’s meeting with the students, breaking windows and furniture".

Mustafa Sheyab, head of security at the university, told The Jordan Times that allegations about his involvement in the clash were untrue, and stressed that most of those involved in the brawl were students from the university and that security guards at the gates did not facilitate the entry of any "outsiders".

"You cannot prevent students from entering the campus, plus the quarrel took place at 3:30pm, the time when many students leave the university," Sheyab added.

"You cannot imagine how difficult it is to control the exit and entry of 40,000 students," he said, claiming that the fight started outside the university.

Also Sunday, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported that security forces entered the campus of Irbid Private University at the request of the president to break up a clash between students from Sarih and Ramtha.

"After news about a renewal of a quarrel yesterday between students from Sarih and Ramtha, strict security enforcement measures were taken outside the Yarmouk University campus," Petra quoted Brigadier General Hussein Nawayseh, director of the northern region Public Security Department, as saying.

"Security personnel arrested 40 persons involved in the quarrel who were carrying pocket knives, sticks and other sharp objects," he said.

Nawayseh told Petra that calm and security were restored at both universities.

1 November 2010

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://jordantimes.com/?news=31435.