SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project investigates and reports attacks on higher education with the aim of raising awareness, generating advocacy, and increasing protection for scholars, students, and academic communities. Starting July 1, 2026, SAR no longer publishes reports for the incidents that it records. SAR continues to monitor and record incidents that will be used in the annual Free to Think report. This page provides a record of incidents reported up to that date. Learn more about the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project.

Date of Incident: May 06, 2024

Attack Types: Other

Institution(s):University of Zawia

Region & Country:Northern Africa | Libya

New or Ongoing:New Incident

On May 6, 2024, unknown actors fired a shell that landed inside the University Zawia’s Faculty of Education. No casualties were reported.

On May 19, the Zawiya University’s Student Union announced that they were suspending classes to protest the decline in security. The union demanded the withdrawal of all armed forces from the university and surrounding city, and the enforcement of international law.

Scholars at Risk is concerned about the targeting of university facilities during armed conflict. Parties to a conflict may only attack legitimate military targets; where a party suspects that a civilian facility—such as a university building—is being used for military purposes, that party has a duty to take every action practicable to verify that this suspicion is correct before initiating an attack. In the event of such an attack, parties must take all practicable precautions to avoid or minimize damage to civilian facilities. Likewise, parties must refrain from using higher education facilities for military purposes during active conflict. Further, parties must refrain from launching attacks which may be expected to cause disproportionate damage to civilian facilities.

Sources:
*SAR identified this incident in data made publicly available by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
https://libyaalahrar.tv/2024/05/07/%D8%AA%D9%84%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%AD-%D8%A8%D8%A5%D9%8A%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%81-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D9%83%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84/
https://x.com/LibyaReview/status/1787538770025120175
https://x.com/lyobserver_ar/status/1787459959124324522
https://www.facebook.com/LyReview/videos/breaking-clashes-between-armed-groups-in-al-zawiya-west-libya/402272522714892/
https://www.qna.org.qa/ar-QA/News-Area/News/2024-05/19/0005-%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AB%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%AF%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D8%AF%D8%B9%D9%88-%D8%A5%D9%84%D9%89-%D9%88%D9%82%D9%81-%D9%81%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A-%D9%84%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B9%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D9%85%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%86%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B2%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9