TRIBUTES have been paid to two 'excellent' and 'highly committed' medical students after they were stabbed to death in Borneo following a row in a bar.

Neil Dalton and Aidan Brunger, both 22, were on the Malaysian part of the island on attachment to a hospital as part of their fourth year studies Newcastle University Medical School when they were attacked in Kuching yesterday.

Local reports claim Britons were attacked and killed in the street by a gang of four local men after a row in a bar. Several men are being held in custody over the deaths.

Professor Jane Calvert, Dean of Undergraduate Studies for Newcastle University Medical School, said: "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.

"We are all so shocked and saddened by this.

"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."

Sarawak deputy police commissioner Datuk Dr Chai Khin Chung said a fight broke out after an argument in a bar over the students being too noisy.

Mr Dalton, of Ambergate, Derbyshire, and Mr Brunger, of Kent, were chased as they left a pub and locals attacked them after pursuing them in a car, local media said.

Mr Brunger ran the Great North Run last September, raising nearly £400 for charity. Their families were too upset to talk about thir deaths.