Malawi Muslim students studying at International University of Africa (IUA) in Khartoum, Sudan are pleading with Malawi Government to repatriate them due to closure of schools in the wake of novel coronavirus pandemic.
The students told Malawi Muslim Website they penned authorities on their need to be brought back home.
“We had written a letter to the ambassador of Sudan based in Cairo, Egypt, as a government body to help us intercede with the government and ask for help to repatriate us back for we believe, the embassy has a big role to play in as far as diplomatic relations are concerned,”
“Up to date, there is no any response to what so ever since we wrote them the letter about three weeks ago and we are only told to wait up to now,” one student says.
One student told Malawi Muslim Website that they also engaged the Islamic Zakaat Fund (IZF) and Malawi Government on the matter.
“So far, there is no any progress on the ground since neither IZF nor Government whom we tried to contact for help show any sign of understanding to help us, but rather, IZF neglect to heed our plea even though they are aware of our situation here, and government says, it has no fund to help for our repatriation. Leaving us stranded without knowing what to do or who to ask help from since we are far away without proper contacts with other organisations to ask for help,”
“We would like to plead with our government to not forsake us as we are also one of it’s citizens and an asset for that matter to the nation at large, we need our government to kindly help us with repatriation flight and tickets for we are all needy students from poor family background to afford air tickets,” he told Malawi Muslim Website.
The students say IZF is not showing interest to help them.
“It is hard to say whether they want to help us out or not since all they say and ask for are things that are impossible in this time and shows a sign of unwillingness to help. Like asking us to get a letter of confirmation of reopening of school from the administration, when even the administration does not know when since the order of closure of school came from the government and they know that it’s impossible to know when, but they give us such a task only to make it seem like we are failing to meet there demands to help us when they actually know it’s impossible to begin with and the like,” another student told Malawi Muslim Website .
The students say they are facing various challenges during their stay in Sudan since closure of schools.
“The struggles are so many as we are psychologically affected and mentally disturbed due to the prolonging closure of schools without any definite hope as to when will the school resume, just staying more like we are in prison since the beginning of this year up to date, it’s torturing enough to out mental and psychologically healthy.We are healthy wise at risk since we luck adequate medical attention since most of the hospital’s medical personnel’s no longer work as before and our own clinic is even worse since one of the worker was found with COVID-19,”
“We now only rely on private hospitals which are way too expensive for us to afford with the medical fund we receive monthly. It can only carter less than 5 if not 7 students out of 144 which is bad statistically. We no longer receive our allowances due to lack of means of money transfer, this affect us in all the sectors that needs money since we receive it through the same channel. The environment we are living in is not conducive either since the workers no longer work as usual nor do we follow the measures put in place to avoid the spread of this pandemic since we are too congested which is not right with the time we are going through,” another student told Malawi Muslim Website.
Many countries closed academic institutions as a precutionary measure against COVID-19 that has killed many people across the world.
