About 500 students from Sittwe University protested against shortage of school ferries on Monday, by walking home from the University, according to a student from Sittwe.

“We are facing problems while going to school because of shortage of ferries in our university, which is located 8 miles away from downtown Sittwe. Everyday we have to wait for the ferry for at least one or two hours before returning home from school. So we protested yesterday against the university authority for the poor arrangement,” a student said.

According to a local source, during the protest demonstration, some students shouted slogans against the poor arrangement of transport for students, by the university authorities. Following which a few government officials from Sittwe arrived and arranged ferries for the students.

However, the authorities could not arrange ferries for all students and therefore there was a small skirmish among the students.

According to a witness, “There were many students taking part in the protest. So it looked like a procession. Many residents came out from their homes to see the students protesting.”

According to student sources, the authority arranged many private ferries for the students from Sittwe University, but the ferries stopped coming to school to transport the students recently, due to lack of profit.

The authorities took only 50 kyat per student as ferry fare for a one way journey between downtown Sittwe and Sittwe University. However, the ferry fare being very low did not translate into profit for the ferry owners. So, the ferry owners wanted to increase the ferry fare from 50 kyat to 100 kyat.

However, it is not possible for the students to pay the increased amount for a one-way journey.

According to the source, the ferry owners sent the ferries to ply between the University and downtown Sittwe in the past, since they made a little profit by selling petrol in the black markets. The petrol was supplied by the authority to ferry-owners for plying ferries between the University and downtown Sittwe.

A student from Sittwe said that earlier ferry owners made profits by selling petrol in markets because at that time the price of petrol used to vary between the government markets and black markets.

He also added that the government rate of petrol was now the same as the black market rate. So the ferry owners have not made any profits recently. So ferry owners did not send their ferries to schools.

However, there is no information so far, regarding the solution of the problem by the government authority.

All Arakan Students’ & Youths’ Congress (AASYC)
General Headquarters