Students blame German University for on-campus death

Hundreds of students staged a sit-in at the German University in Cairo (GUC) on Tuesday after engineering student Yara Negm was fatally crushed by university buses on Monday.

The students protested against the administration’s negligence in the incident, and called for a series of new safety measures.

GUC suspended all classes for a three-day period of mourning and froze all student activities for two weeks, according to Insider, the GUC student newspaper.

Eyewitness testimonies posted on Facebook said that Negm was crushed between two student buses and bled to death before the university ambulance arrived at the scene. Pictures of a pool of blood in the parking lot have circulated on social media.

A list of 10 demands was presented at the sit-in, including holding those responsible for student security accountable for Negm’s death, overhauling the campus parking lot, installing sensors in the buses and stationing ambulances around campus, the Insider reported. The students also called for a number of new safety procedures, such as regular evacuation drills and establishing an emergency hotline.

The protesters gathered on campus, but when the sit-in failed to make an impact, they moved to the parking lot to block buses from departing, according to students who participated in the sit-in. They ultimately moved to the main gate on campus.

Management student Nadine Karim told Mada Masr that this was one of the largest sit-ins she’s seen at GUC. On Tuesday morning students had decided to boycott their morning classes, and some professors even canceled their lectures to allow their students to join the sit-in, according to Nadine, before the administration finally decided to suspend classes.

But the university has yet to respond to the protesters, GUC student Hana Ahmed told Mada. Hana is participating in the sit-in, and insists that the students will hold their ground until their demands are met.

“The university thinks this was just an accident, and do not feel responsible” for Negm’s death, Hana claimed.

Hana and Nadine both cited eyewitnesses who alleged that the campus ambulance was egregiously slow in responding to the accident because the medics wanted to verify that Negm was a GUC student before taking action. Furthermore, the medical team wasn’t equipped to respond to the severity of the emergency, they said.

“We pay a lot of student fees and are promised a lot of services, but it’s all for nothing,” Nadine argued. “We have yet to see these promises materialize.”

Furthermore, she complained that the bus parking lot is disorganized and chaotic.

“It’s only natural that she would be killed there,” Nadine claimed.

Engineering student Ahmad Sherif Kamel, who was on campus at the time of the accident, wrote on his Facebook page that he couldn’t shake the mental image of Negm lying in a pool of blood.

“I will never forget the image of the driver banging on his head, sitting on the floor instead of rushing to help her,” he wrote. “I will never forget the rest of the drivers who nonchalantly said, ‘We called the ambulance, what else can we do?’”