had no authority to establish the university, as that was solely under its purview. They concluded that a region the size of Abkhazia had no need for two universities. It also found that despite Georgian claims they were discriminated against under the language system in place, they had a higher percent of applications than the Abkhaz sector (33.5% for the Georgian compared to 24% for Abkhaz; the Russian, which would have had applicants from all three groups, saw 42.5% of all applications. The riots Despite the ruling against the legality of the university, entrance exams were scheduled for 15 July. Attempts by Abkhaz to photograph the crowds of Georgians congregated in the city is said to have started the violence. By 7:00pm the university was under attack. Late on 16 July, a crowd of five thousand Abkhaz, many of whom were armed, surged into the building. Several members of the Georgian exam commission were beaten up, and the school was looted. This set off a chain of events that produced further casualties and destruction as the both sides engaged in armed fighting for several days to come. That evening, Abkhaz and Georgians began mobilizing all over Abkhazia and western Georgia. Svans, an ethnic Georgian subgroup from northeastern Abkhazia, and Abkhaz from the town of Tkvarcheli in Abkhazia clashed in a shootout that lasted all night and intermittently for several days afterward. Meanwhile, up to 25,000 Georgians from western Georgia, and the predominantly Georgian Gali district in southern Abkhazia, gathered near Ochamchire. Soviet Interior Ministry troops were sent in to restore order, and by 17 July the violence had largely dissipated. Aftermath The July events in Abkhazia left at least 18 dead and 448 injured, of whom, according to official accounts, 302 were Georgians. It also marked the first case of inter-ethnic violence in Georgia; while previous protests and demonstrations had occurred in Abkhazia, none had seen any casualties. Although a continuous presence of the Interior Ministry troops maintained a precarious peace in the region, outbursts of violence did occur, and the Soviet government made no progress toward solving any of the inter-ethnic problems. The Georgians suspected the attack on their university was intentionally staged by the Abkhaz secessionists in order to provoke a large-scale violence that would prompt Moscow to declare a martial law in the region, thus depriving the government in Tbilisi of any control over the autonomous structures