Officials at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where police and protesters last week clashed violently, yesterday said that they had searched the entire campus and found just one remaining holdout, in a sign the campus siege might be near an end.
The school campus emerged as the epicenter of the territory’s increasingly violent protest movement when clashes broke out on Sunday last week between police and protesters armed with bows, arrows and Molotov cocktails.
The standoff then quickly settled into a tense stalemate during which hundreds fled the campus — some attempting to get out through sewer lines — leaving a dwindling core of holdouts.
However, university officials said that their search turned up just one remaining female protester.
“We have swept through the whole campus systematically and we found one protester in the student union building,” university vice president Wai Ping-kong (衛炳江) told reporters.
The individual is at least 18 years old and not a student at the university, Wai said, but gave no further details on her identity.
The university was trying to convince her to leave, Wai added.
As the standoff set in, it became a guessing game as to how many protesters remained, as they largely kept themselves hidden in buildings across the campus.
The university early yesterday sent in teams to look for holdouts, sealing doors with tape after rooms had been searched, but Wai said that officials could not rule out the possibility that other protesters remained hidden.
Asked whether police would soon move in to clear the university, Wai said that he knew of no such intention, and police announced no plans to enter the campus, which they have had surrounded throughout the impasse.
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