South Sudanese students deported over Cairo embassy sit-in

JUBA – At least three South Sudanese students studying in various Egyptian universities on government scholarship were on Friday deported back to Juba by the authorities over recent events in which students staged a sit-in at their country’s embassy in Cairo to demand better studying conditions at their respective universities.

Late last month, hundreds of students studying on government scholarship in Egypt staged a sit-in at the embassy in Cairo, occupying it for several days before Egyptian security intervention that resulted in the wounding of at least 9 of the students and the arrest of 10 others.

The students later on abandoned the sit-in after the ministry of higher education in Juba promised them to address the deteriorating conditions at universities where they were told that the scholarship on cover their study in part.

Speaking to Sudans Post on Saturday, Bech Marial, one of the students who are back to South Sudan following deportation from Egypt said the forceful return was ordered by the Amb. Joseph Muom Majak, the head of his country’s mission to Egypt.

“We were illegally deported yesterday (Friday) with directives from the ambassador himself without any crime passed on us by Egyptian court. We were never taken to court when we were in prison, we were just chained until we were taken for coronavirus test two days before we left,” he said.

The student who is yet to make up his mind on his next move said even the Egyptian security forces who were guarding them were telling them that Amb. Muom was behind the detention orders and that the Egyptian police was only executing orders from the embassy.

“Several Egyptian security personnel guarding us told many times that we ‘are innocent but we are following the command of your ambassador responsible for your detention’. We were greatly tortured, very badly and sustained alarming injuries from physical perspective to mental health issues,” he added.

The other two deported alongside Bech who was studying medicine at Tanta University are Abuk Matthew Bol who was studying law at Ain Shams University, and Duhai Ayuel Akok who was studying medicine at the same university.

Others Bech said are set for deportation but still in detention are Atek Mawien Mawien who was computer science at Cairo University, Ring Monydhar who was studying petroleum engineering at Suez Canal University, Kur Malueth Yak who was studying medicine at Ain Shams University, Wujum Muon Gatwech who was studying medicine at Cairo University, Ajak Arou Mayom who was studying medicine at the University of Alexandria, Bol Deng Anei who was studying medicine at Cairo University, and Lueth Mangar Lueth who was studying commerce at Cairo University.

“They rest will be deported too on their flight schedules from this coming Monday to next Monday as part of ambassador strategy of not being caught deporting a large number of students without any deportation documentaries and without being tried in court of law,” Bech said.

The student further said that they were handed over to the police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) after arrival in Juba, but were released after the authorities did not find any evidence of wrongdoing from the side of the students as they were accused of burning their country’s flag during the embassy sit-in.

“We were supervised by directed Egyptian security personnel from prison to airport and from plane to hand of Criminal investigation department (CID) in Juba international airport being that we were criminals who have burned South Sudan flag at Embassy and after we narrated everything to them, they were surprisingly shocked and dismissed us immediately to our parents from investigation until further dates,” he added.

Bech further said that the group of students will on Monday go to the police authorities in a bid to get an explanation as to why they were deported from their studies and would then go to the ministry of foreign affairs as well as the ministry of higher education for further discussion, further revealing that some of their colleagues who are still in detention in Egypt will arrive in the country tomorrow.

“Now, we trying to recover and some are doing medication and by tomorrow will be going to the Criminals Investigation Department (CID) to explain to us the reason we were deported with evidence of criminal records and then we will be going to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Higher Education as we are waiting for next group (3 students) who are coming on Monday,” he said.