Six Students Wounded as Sanaa University Reopens

Six students were wounded in clashes Saturday on the first day of the academic year between rival groups at Sanaa University, near the epicenter of ongoing protests, a hospital source said.

Two groups, divided between students who backed a resumption of classes and those who did not, came to blows, with stones and other projectiles also being used in the clashes, according to those involved and the medical official.

Shouting "No lessons, no teaching, before the ouster of the president (Ali Abdullah Saleh)," hundreds of students marched through the university grounds, calling for a boycott of classes and trying to keep their classmates from going to their lessons, an Agence France Presse journalist said.

Hassan Kahlani, a teacher at the university, told AFP he had temporarily stopped his students from leaving the lecture hall they were in at the end of their class.

Only around 15 percent of students attended their classes on the first day of the academic year at Sanaa University, according to students.

Access to the university was controlled by military forces loyal to dissident General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, whose troops control Change Square, next to the university and where protesters have since February been calling for the departure of President Saleh.

Tanks and armored vehicles were stationed at the entrance to the campus and armed civilians were also seen along the walls of the university, while the departments of arts and languages remained closed, students said.

Minister of Higher Education Saleh Ba-Sourah said he had met with General al-Ahmar on Saturday, and had asked him "not to involve students in the political crisis".

"If we continue to bar students from accessing lecture theatres, the state will have to close the university completely," the minister told AFP. "And the students will be the big losers."

Despite large protests that have been ongoing since January against his regime, Saleh has refused to give up power. He has been in Riyadh for the past three months, receiving treatment after being wounded in an attack.