University of Afrin
Afrin University was an unrecognized university in the city of Afrin in the de facto autonomous region, the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria. It was the second university to open in Rojava and the first university to open in the Afrin Canton.
It opened on 26 July 2015 to an intake of students said to be anywhere from 250 to 850. In August of the same year it had 22 professors on their staff. Six additional labs opened at the start of the new term. In August it ran programs in literature, journalism, engineering, medicine, and economics. It included institutes for medicine, topographic engineering, music, theatre, business administration and the Kurdish language. The university had a five-year engineering program and four-year programs for all other specializations; and a two-tier fee system for local and international students, with price primarily dependant on the course of study chosen.
The university was shut down after the beginning of the Turkish military operation in Afrin in January 2018, and students were transferred to the University of Rojava in Qamishli. During the subsequent Turkish occupation, Ahrar al-Sharqiya arrested Dr Abdul Majeed Izzat Sheikho, the dean of Kurdish literature at the University of Afrin.
