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U.S. students attempt to evacuate Egypt amid violent protests

Heeding warnings from the U.S. State Department to leave Egypt due to the ongoing political and social unrest, American students studying abroad in the country will likely leave Egypt in the next few days, if they have not done so already.

Protests against President Hosni Mubarak have turned violent in the past week, as Mubarak has sent in the military to help stop demonstrations against his regime. Schools have largely encouraged or arranged for American students to leave the country, but the approach has varied from program to program.

Georgetown evacuated their students to Qatar today, while George Washington University has advised students to avoid demonstrations, but has not arranged for them to leave the country yet. Yale has advised 20 students and faculty to remain where they are until flight arrangements can be made. The Institute for Study Abroad, a large national program affiliated with Butler University, has arranged for their students currently in Egypt to leave the country.

“We have 12 students in Egypt right now. They were all going to study at Alexandria University and arrived last Monday for orientation, just before the riots erupted,” said Kathleen Walden, the assistant director for communications for IFSA.

“I can only speak for our programs, but I would imagine that most study abroad and exchange programs will be attempting to get their students out of Egypt as quickly as possible,” Walden said.

Walden said IFSA had contracted with an emergency medical and travel assistance company that arranged a charter flight to Athens for the students. As of Monday morning, the students were at the airport and hoping to leave today.

“Our students in Alexandria felt that they were safe, but the bigger problem is that universities are beginning to close and saying they will remain closed until the situation stabilizes,” Walden said. “This of course means no classes, so students have no choice but to leave, especially if they don’t want to lose a whole semester of credits.”

Walden said Butler-program students have been given the opportunity to study in Australia for the semester; Australian classes don’t start until late February, so the students will still have a full semester abroad.

Students in smaller programs, like Vanderbilt junior Sloane Speakman, also have had to alter their plans. Speakman will leave Egypt as soon as safely possible, according to Speakman’s mother, Shannon Speakman Fry.

Speakman, who was planning on studying Forced Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo before classes were postponed indefinitely, will fly to Europe today on a U.S. chartered flight.

Fry, who spoke to her daughter early Sunday morning, said Speakman is disappointed to be leaving.

“Sloane thinks it is an exciting time to be there, and she wants to be there while they are fighting for their rights,” Fry said.

Speakman is the first student to participate in a Vanderbilt-approved study abroad program for students interested in learning Arabic.
Study abroad programs to the Middle East have seen tremendous growth since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

According to a February 2010 report from the Institute of International Education, a private nonprofit group that administers the Fulbright program for the U.S. government, the number of American students studying in Arabic-speaking countries increased to approximately 3,400 in 2007 from 562 in 2002. Study abroad program listings for the Middle East and Africa have increased by more than 70 percent since 2001, according to the group.

Egypt was one of the more popular Middle Eastern locations for students, along with Jordan and Morocco, but with the protests turning violent, Egypt’s immediate future is uncertain.

Vanderbilt Assistant Professor of Political Science and Middle East politics specialist Katherine Carroll said she thinks it’s time for Mubarak to go, but said the outcome seems to depend on the U.S. and the Egyptian military.

“If we publicly withdraw support from him — which our politicians do not seem ready to do — it will probably be over more quickly. If the Egyptian military is unwilling to do what it would take to keep him in power, then he can’t hang on,” Carroll said. “I don’t know enough to guess which way the Egyptian military will go, but I hope they decide to nudge him out, and soon, before there is more bloodshed and an even greater breakdown of civil order.”

The U.S. State Department is prepared to evacuate thousands of U.S. citizens from Egypt on chartered planes, but is relying largely on friends and families in the U.S. to relay that information to stranded Americans.

Assistant Secretary of State Janice Jacobs told reporters Sunday that she expects it will take several flights over the coming days to handle the number of Americans who want to leave Egypt.

Jacobs acknowledged that Internet interruptions in Egypt are making it difficult for Americans there to get information about the evacuations. But she said they have been able to get information from people in the United States who do have access to State Department and embassy websites.

The charters began Monday from Cairo and will fly to Europe. Jacobs said the U.S. is looking at Athens, Greece; Istanbul, Turkey; and Nicosia, Cyprus, as destinations.

There are about 52,000 Americans registered with the embassy in Cairo, according to the State Department. Officials noted, however, that many people don’t register (or de-register when they leave) and some Americans in Egypt may not want to leave.

Kyle Blaine contributed reporting to this piece.

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