The puzzle of the repatriation of thousands of Arab students to Ukraine
More than 10,000 Arab students have been caught up in the conflict in Ukraine, and their repatriation is a headache for their governments. Moroccans form the main contingent of Arab students along with Egyptians in Ukraine, popular for studying medicine and engineering.
On Friday, worried families gathered in Rabat, Morocco, in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At least 12,000 Moroccans, including 8,000 students, usually reside there. According to Foreign Affairs, 3,000 have returned recently, in particular thanks to special flights.
For the 700 to 750 Lebanese students stranded in Ukraine compared to 1,300 present before the Russian invasion, the situation is more critical. The authorities of Lebanon said they were preparing to evacuate their nationals in Ukraine or refugees in Poland and Romania by air, but this will be done ” at a later date “without any additional precision, except that of remaining “in safe places” waiting for.
For its part, the Embassy ofEgypta country with 6,000 nationals, more than half of whom are students mostly enrolled in Kharkiv, said on Facebook to coordinate the evacuation of its nationals to Romania and Poland.
The Tunisia, which does not have an embassy in Ukraine, will send planes to Poland and Romania to repatriate its nationals who wish to leave among the 1,700 living in Ukraine, 80% of whom are students. Tunis also contacted the UN and the International Red Cross to help evacuate them by land.
For its part, the Libya has planned rallying points in Ukraine and evacuations to Slovakia for a diaspora estimated at nearly 3,000 people, according to its embassy in Ukraine.
L’Algeria, which has a thousand students in Ukraine and is linked to Russia by military agreements, distinguished itself by not calling on its nationals to leave the country. But she urged them to “Extreme caution and only to leave their homes in an emergency”.