Norwegian Foreign Ministry recommends in its travel advisory for China that Norwegian studens in Hong Kong “should continuously evaluate campus safety if teaching is interrupted due to protests” on 13th November 2019. The Foreign Ministry advised students to keep themselves informed of metroi stations being closed and which access roads that would remain open to the international airport.
Several Nordic students at Hong Kong Baptist University have in the past days been moved because anti-government demonstrators are on the school grounds.
Student Elina Neverdal Hjoennevaag told Norwegian broadcaster NRK on Wednesday that they are being sent to a hotel, “I don’t really know what is happening. I must pack.”
“I and several other exchange students were told to pack and move away from the university.” “People walked out with their suitcases, Many cried,” She said.
Earlier on Tuesday 12th November 2019, police raided the Chinese University of Hong Kong as anti-government protestors using the place to create handmade bombs and armed themselves with bows and arrows, setting off violent clashes. The university remained barricaded by demonstrators on Wednesday as the city’s 5-month-long anti-government unrest turns increasingly violent.
A Danish technical university is urging its 36 students in Hong Kong to pack up and return to Denmark.
Anders Overgaard Bjarklev, Director of the Technical University of Denmark(DTU), said to Danish broadcaster DR that “the decision came after some of the riots have moved to the campuses and some of our students have been forced to move from their dormitories because they were put on fire.”
“We’ve made the decision late Tuesday for the students to come back to Denmark in an orderly fashion.”
“DTU would also solve any academic challenges associated with the interrupted course,” Mr. Bjarklev added.
Many of the masked people taking part in the protests are thought to be high school and university students.
The Beijing Evening News reported that mainland students said in online posts that protesters have broken into their dormitories, spray-painted insults on walls and banged on their doors.
Hong Kong police said that they had helped a group of mainland students leave their campus after it was barricaded by demonstrators.
Protesters have torched vehicles and buildings, hurled petrol bombs at police stations and trains and vandalized prime shopping malls over the past week in some of the worst violence seen in more than five months of unrest.
Black-clad protesters and university students maintained their blockades of major roads, including the entrance to the Cross-Harbour Tunnel that links Hong Kong island to the Kowloon area, and a highway between Kowloon and the rural New Territories. Police fired tear gas near the tunnel early on Thursday 14th November2019 to try to clear the protesters. Roads were strewn with bricks and other debris leading to widespread traffic jams.
Thousands of students barricaded themselves inside campuses at several universities overnight, preparing stockpiles of food, bricks, petrol bombs and other make-do weapons as they hunkered down.
Dozens of riot police gathered outside several universities early on Thursday as students fortified their positions with metal poles, bricks and chairs, according to CNBC.
Carry Lam said “this week protesters paralyzing the city were selfish and were now the people’s enemy.”
While protests have usually taken place on weekends, with the city getting back to business during the week, the demonstrations are now taking place on week days, bringing huge disruption to the city of 7.4 million.
Hong Kong’s metro operator MTR said several train lines, stations and bus routes would remain shut due to damaged facilities, with the whole network shutting more than two hours early, by 10 p.m.
The early closures and termination of transport services has further weakened the city’s economy, which fell into recession for the first time in a decade in the third quarter. Retail and tourism have been hit hard by a fall in visitor numbers.
