By Abdoulaye Massalatchi NIAMEY, March 20 (Reuters) - Police in Niger fired teargas at a crowd of stone-throwing students during a protest on their university campus in the capital Niamey on Tuesday, slightly injuring 10, witnesses said. Some 200 police prevented 600 students from holding a sit-in at the university offices in the most violent of three days of sporadic confrontations between students and police posted to keep order at the country's only university. A Reuters witness saw five students in hospital who had been slightly injured by teargas canisters fired by police. Police sources said five more had been hurt. The local branch of the Niger Students Union has demanded the removal of Djibril Abarchi as coordinator of student services, accusing him of allowing students' living conditions to deteriorate since his appointment last year. Students also object to sharing their canteen with police officers posted on the campus at the request of university authorities to keep order since Abarchi's appointment. "The police shouldn't be fed on our already meagre allowances and they must withdraw. You don't want a policeman behind you when you want to study and think," said Amadou Abdou, a student. Abarchi, an academic, was appointed for one year in a compromise between teaching staff and the government, which had planned to give a military officer the post. But his efforts to cut costs by reducing power and water consumption have proved unpopular with students who, as at many African universities, frequently protest about poor housing, canteen and transport services and unpaid study grants. "We demand Mr Abarchi's departure on the grounds of poor management, because since his appointment he has done nothing but make the lives of students more precarious, even reducing them to begging," said student union official Boka Abdoulaye. Landlocked Niger is one of the world's poorest countries, ranking bottom of the most recent United Nations Human Development index.
