These days, it seems like there's a story every other week that acts as a reminder of just how aware you have to be when travelling abroad this summer or on a gap year. Earlier this week, we reported that women's only carriages have been reinstalled in Thailand after a 13-year-old was raped by a member of train staff, and now comes horrific news from Borneo that two British medical students have been stabbed to death after a row in a local bar.
Neil Dalton, 23, from Derbyshire, and Aidan Brunger, 22, from Kent, were in their fourth year studying medicine at Newcastle University and in Borneo for a placement as part of their studies. The two were killed in the Jalan Paadungan district of Kuching, Sarawak, in the early hours of Wednesday morning and local reports claim they were attacked by four local men who followed them after a row erupted in a bar over the students making too much noise.
Neil and Aidan were due to return to the UK on Friday after their six-week placement – which they were completing with five other students – came to an end.
Sarawak deputy police commissioner, Datuk Dr Chai Khin Chung, told a media conference that initial investigations indicate the pair were drinking in a bar in the popular tourist area when they got in an argument with four men. The students were reportedly followed by a car and attacked by one of four. One had four stab woods to the chest and back and the other a single wound to the chest. Four men were arrested at and a knife and vehicle recovered.
'Neil Dalton and Aidan Brunger, both 22, were on a six-week work placement, along with five other medical students, to put the skills they had learnt during their time here at the university into practice,' Professor Tony Stevenson, Newcastle University's acting vice-chancellor, said in a statement. 'This has come as a huge shock to us all and our thoughts are with their families and friends at this very difficult time. Two of our members of staff are flying out to Kuching as soon as possible and we are working closely with the British high commissioner to support the other students and to coordinate their return to the UK.'
Professor Jane Calvert, the medical school's dean of undergraduate studies, added: 'They were doing what thousands of medical students do every year – they were on an elective to experience clinical practice in a different setting, to learn from that and enhance their practice when they came back. They were excellent students; they were doing really well with their studies, they were highly committed and coming back next year to work as doctors. Aidan was aspiring to do some medical research on his return; Neil was going straight into his final year and it's such a tragic thing to occur.'
Unsurprisingly,
where friends are coming to terms with their tragic deaths.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.