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Ammon News - The Yarmouk University’s taking down of decades-old campus trees has provoked public ire after photos of the trees laid on the ground went viral on social media.

Academic staff, university employees and citizens criticized the move, which the university said was "inevitable" to find space for a solar power project much needed to cut energy costs.

They demanded that the university cease from taking down any additional trees and search for other options, saying these decades-old trees are part of their memory of the place and the legacy of the university.

A spokesman for the university said it "discussed and exhausted" all alternatives and options available to implement the second phase of the solar power project, but found them "not feasible".

"Everyone in the university, administration, students, workers and professors, feels sorry for the loss of these trees, some which were planted by them’’, according to Mukhlis al-Abini, the university’s spokesman and public relations director.

However, he indicated that the removal of the trees was "a necessary evil" to reduce and zero the university’s energy bill, promising that the university will plant hundreds of trees on its southern campus in February.