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Hundreds of Iraqi Arab students seeking
refuge at a university in Kurdistan
24.7.2007 |
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July
24, 2007
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region (Iraq), -- As
violence escalates in Iraq's central and southern
regions, hundreds of students have sought refuge at
a university in Kurdistan, the school's president
said.
"They fear for their lives," said Mohammad Sadik,
president of the University of Salahaddin/Hawler,
Kurdistan region's largest school with 20,000
students.
Any day on their way to classes at the other
universities, they could encounter a bomb, he said
in an interview. "We just had to make room."
Sadik spoke about the challenges of the sudden
influx of students yesterday between attending a
four-day conference at the University of
Massachusetts at Boston about rebuilding Iraq. Sadik
and about 10 others who have traveled from Iraq hope
to learn lessons they can apply to their home
country.
Since last year, the number of students seeking
refuge at the University of Salahaddin/Hawler has
doubled, reaching more than 1,000. To accommodate
the increase in enrollment, Sadik said, the
university is renting houses to serve as dorms. |
UMass-Boston is holding an international conference
on rebuilding sustainable communities in Iraq. Among
the participants are Dr. Ahmed Anwar Dezaye (left),
general director of scholarships and cultural
relations, and Tahir Albakaa, a former minister of
higher education, arts, and scientific research and
former president of Mustansiriya University in Iraq.
Photo.Boton.globe |
The school also had to make another change. The
university teaches most courses in Kurdish, instead
of in Arabic, which the rest of the country uses.
The school now offers six months of language
training to the students and the 200 faculty who
have sought refuge in Kurdistan.
Many of the students relocated with their families
after they were issued death threats for working
with the government.
Others wanted to avoid the risks they ran simply by
going to class.
At Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, two bombs
exploded during an afternoon rush and killed 70
students and staff in January. The following month a
suicide bomber on campus detonated a vest filled
with explosives and ball bearings that killed 40.
"When you don't have safety and security, it's very
hard to rebuild," said Tahir Albakaa, who also
served as Iraq's minister of higher education and
scientific research and is now a visiting scholar at
Suffolk University. "The professors and doctors
become a target."
Since April 2003, there have been 230 professors and
347 students killed, Albakaa said.
Professors have escaped to Jordan and Syria, leaving
universities to cope with shrinking teaching staffs.
Without resources at home, professors seeking
doctoral degrees apply to programs abroad.
boston com
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