Egypt's Health Ministry said Saturday that 25 students were "suspectedly" poisoned at the hostel of the Islamic-oriented Al-Azhar University, which has been hit twice by such incidents last month.

The ministry said the students were sent to nearby hospitals and 14 of them have been discharged, official news agency MENA reported. But the exact time of the incident is not specified.

If confirmed, the incident will be the third of its kind in five weeks, after over 500 students of Al-Azhar University fell ill after eating rotten chicken on the night of April 1, and 179 got sick after having lunch reportedly including bad tuna at the same university on April 29.

The April 1 incident ended up with the sacking of Al-Azhar University's chief Osama al-Abd; and after the second case, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi called for urgent investigations into the repeated food poisoning cases on campus, after being told about the worsening food safety at Al-Azhar university's dormitory by head of the students' union.

Some opposition figures accuse the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), Morsi's main supporters, of plotting the food poisoning cases at Al-Azhar University in an attempt to bring down the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, and replace him with a MB- affiliated one.

But the MB and its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, have repeatedly denied the claims as baseless. Endi

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)