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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Clashes between students at Mutah University in the southern governorate of Karak renewed on Tuesday, with clashing students using firearms and firing gunshots in the air.

Tuesday's clashes are reportedly related to a dispute between students from two different Karak tribes that started last week and prompted the university to suspend classes following a new episode of campus violence.

Clashing students on Tuesday also brought fireworks to campus and fired gunshots in the air, spreading fear among other university students leading to a mass walkout from campus with students fearing an escalation of violence.

Rioting students vandalized campus facilities and set trees inside campus on fire.

Eye-witnesses told Ammon News that a number of students were injured in a "stampede" as students were rushing to exit the campus, located some 130 km south of Amman.

Security forces, some in civilian clothes, reportedly entered the campus to contain the incident and arrest students involved in the clashes.

Tuesday's clashes come a week after Mutah University suspended classes over renewed episodes of university violence.

King Abdullah II on June 16 gave a speech during a graduation ceremony for a batch of Mutah University's Military wing students, highlighting the alarming rise of university violence and its implications on social unrest.

Earlier in April, classes at Mutah were suspended for a week after a 21-year old student died and several others were injured in clashes between different tribes.

The death of the engineering student, Osama Dheisat, provoked riots in his hometown of Faqou' in southern Karak.

A disciplinary panel investigating April's violence announced on Sunday that it will publish the names of students who took part in the violence, and determine penalties for those participating, Mu'tah University Dean of Student Affairs Ali Dmour said.



He told Petra that those found guilty face a stiff fine along with other punitive measures, stressing that the panel had not come under any pressures and pledged to "meet the higher interest of the university and its students and defend its distinguished reputation."



Dmour said penalties would range from total or partial suspension of students, suspension of scholarships or aid for any students involved in on-campus violence, and repayment of all stipends a student had acquired before the punishment's enforcement.



He further said dismissal will be irreversible.

Similar violence erupted in later in April at Al Hussein bin Talal University in the southern governorate of Maan, that left four people dead and dozens wounded when clashing students brought firearms to campus as clashes broke out on campus.