Students in Syria’s Idlib Protest Closure of Universities

FILE PHOTO: A general view taken with a drone shows the Clock Tower of Idlib city, Syria June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A general view taken with a drone shows the Clock Tower of Idlib city, Syria June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo
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Students in Syria’s Idlib Protest Closure of Universities

FILE PHOTO: A general view taken with a drone shows the Clock Tower of Idlib city, Syria June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A general view taken with a drone shows the Clock Tower of Idlib city, Syria June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo

In Syria's Idlib province, Mudar Darwish and fellow medical students clutched banners and chanted against the closure of their university.

"Our future is being wasted because of unfair decisions against our university," Darwish told the crowd gathered in the northwestern region.

"We won't allow it," said the 28-year-old, who has been protesting against the closure of his university in the town of Maaret al-Noman.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has closed down a dozen universities since January, in a bid to bring them under its control.

It has come under increased criticism in recent weeks after shutting down a series of universities in its stronghold.

The so-called Salvation Government, an HTS-dominated body administering Idlib and its capital, said the move serves to regulate higher education.

The degrees offered by Idlib's universities, including the Maaret al-Noman university, are not recognized abroad, but they can facilitate employment within the province.

Darwish said the closure of the Maaret al-Noman university will deal a blow to "the future of 1,700 students".

The 28-year-old student suggested the administration in Idlib was trying to turn the universities into a cash cow.

"We used to pay a tuition of no more than $300 and we can't afford to pay $1,800 for universities" accredited by HTS, he told Agence France Presse.

Reda Omari, a 23-year-old nursing student, expressed a similar sentiment.

"The Government of Salvation's universities are commercial enterprises," said the young man.

"They're just 'uni for money'," he said.

After two weeks of rallies in Maaret al-Noman, students moved their protest to Idlib city, where they gathered around the so-called Council of Higher Education, a body linked to the Salvation Government.

They raised banners, chanted slogans against the council's president and blocked access to its main headquarters.

After the first rally, HTS erected checkpoints to prevent more students from Maaret al-Noman and the nearby town of Ariha from joining demonstrations.

They threatened to arrest students if demonstrators did not disperse.

Majdi al-Husni, the head of the Council of Higher Education, said he understands why students are angry but stressed the need for uniformity across Idlib's educational sector.

He said the council aims to "supervise" the educational sector and harmonize the curriculum to ensure "quality education" in regions controlled by HTS.

"University programs don't have to be 100 percent identical, but there has to be some consensus," he told AFP.

He said the Salvation Government has granted accreditation to only eight universities. 

"There are more than 13 educational institutions operating without the oversight of the Council of Higher Education... on a territory of barely 10,000 square kilometers", Husni added.

"This reflects badly on the reputation of higher education in the region," he said.

Protests in Maaret al-Noman have largely fizzled out in recent days but students and teachers continued to express anger at HTS.

In a sign of defiance, staff members at the faculty of medicine at the Maaret al-Noman university started teaching on the street outside campus.

Photos shared on social media networks showed students sitting in rows on plastic chairs, facing a white-haired man dressed in a medical gown.

The instructor used the sidewalk as a podium. Behind him, the university's facade is visible.

Heavy regime shelling on the town, however, has disrupted these open-air classes.

Since September, Idlib has been protected from a massive regime offensives by a ceasefire deal brokered by regime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey.

But sporadic regime bombardment has continued to hit the region, and hundreds of missiles have rained down on Maaret al-Noman in recent weeks.

With the closure of the university, "many young people will give up their studies to stay at home or look for work," fellow student Mohammed al-Shahud said.

"Our future is being thrown away," he said.



People Returning to Sudan’s Capital: Khartoum is Not Habitable

Destroyed combat vehicles stand on a street at the Sharg Elnil area, which was recently liberated by the Sudanese army, in Khartoum, Sudan March 15, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig
Destroyed combat vehicles stand on a street at the Sharg Elnil area, which was recently liberated by the Sudanese army, in Khartoum, Sudan March 15, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig
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People Returning to Sudan’s Capital: Khartoum is Not Habitable

Destroyed combat vehicles stand on a street at the Sharg Elnil area, which was recently liberated by the Sudanese army, in Khartoum, Sudan March 15, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig
Destroyed combat vehicles stand on a street at the Sharg Elnil area, which was recently liberated by the Sudanese army, in Khartoum, Sudan March 15, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig

Destroyed bridges, blackouts, empty water stations and looted hospitals across Sudan bear witness to the devastating impact on infrastructure from two years of war.

Authorities estimate hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of reconstruction would be needed. Yet there is little chance of that in the short-term given continued fighting and drone attacks on power stations, dams and fuel depots.

Not to mention a world becoming more averse to foreign aid where the biggest donor, the US, has slashed assistance.

The Sudanese army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been battling since April 2023, with tens of thousands of people killed or injured and about 13 million uprooted in what aid groups call the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Residents of the capital Khartoum have to endure weeks-long power outages, unclean water and overcrowded hospitals. Their airport is burnt out with shells of planes on the runway.

Most of the main buildings in downtown Khartoum are charred and once-wealthy neighborhoods are ghost towns with destroyed cars and unexploded shells dotting the streets.

"Khartoum is not habitable. The war has destroyed our life and our country and we feel homeless even though the army is back in control," said Tariq Ahmed, 56.

He returned briefly to his looted home in the capital before leaving it again, after the army recently pushed the RSF out of Khartoum.

One consequence of the infrastructure breakdown can be seen in a rapid cholera outbreak that has claimed 172 deaths out of 2,729 cases over the past week alone mainly in Khartoum.

Other parts of central and western Sudan, including the Darfur region, are similarly ravaged by fighting, while the extensive damage in Khartoum, once the center of service provision, reverberates across the country.

Sudanese authorities estimate reconstruction needs at $300 billion for Khartoum and $700 billion for the rest of Sudan.

The UN is doing its own estimates.

Sudan's oil production has more than halved to 24,000 barrels-per-day and its refining capabilities ceased as the main al-Jaili oil refinery sustained $3 billion in damages during battles, Oil and Energy Minister Mohieddine Naeem told Reuters.

Without refining capacity, Sudan now exports all its crude and relies on imports, he said. It also struggles to maintain pipelines needed by South Sudan for its own exports.

Earlier this month, drones targeted fuel depots and the airport at the country's main port city.

All of Khartoum's power stations have been destroyed, Naeem said. The national electrical company recently announced a plan to increase supply from Egypt to northern Sudan and said earlier in the year that repeated drone attacks to stations outside Khartoum were stretching its ability to keep the grid going.

LOOTED COPPER

Government forces re-took Khartoum earlier this year and as people return to houses turned upside down by looters, one distinctive feature has been deep holes drilled into walls and roads to uncover valuable copper wire.

On Sudan's Nile Street, once its busiest throughway, there is a ditch about one meter (three feet) deep and 4 km (2.5 miles) long, stripped of wiring and with traces of burning.

Khartoum's two main water stations went out of commission early in the war as RSF soldiers looted machinery and used fuel oil to power vehicles, according to Khartoum state spokesperson Altayeb Saadeddine.

Those who have remained in Khartoum resort to drinking water from the Nile or long-forgotten wells, exposing them to waterborne illnesses. But there are few hospitals equipped to treat them.

"There has been systematic sabotage by militias against hospitals, and most medical equipment has been looted and what remains has been deliberately destroyed," said Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim, putting losses to the health system at $11 billion.

With two or three million people looking at returning to Khartoum, interventions were needed to avoid further humanitarian emergencies like the cholera outbreak, said United Nations Development Program resident representative Luca Renda.

But continued war and limited budget means a full-scale reconstruction plan is not in the works.

"What we can do ... with the capacity we have on the ground, is to look at smaller-scale infrastructure rehabilitation," he said, like solar-power water pumps, hospitals, and schools.

In that way, he said, the war may provide an opportunity for decentralizing services away from Khartoum, and pursuing greener energy sources.