Sudanese authorities return three students who sought to join ISIS
July 2, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese authorities in the early hours of Wednesday have returned three of the college students who secretly flown to Turkey to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Al-Sudani daily newspaper quoted sources on Thursday as saying that authorities returned three students including a female student, pointing they have been interrogated by the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS).
The female students have been released noon on Wednesday while investigations are still ongoing with the other two students.
Meanwhile, Sudan’s foreign minister, Ibrahim Ghandour, said in press statements on Wednesday that his ministry is following up the issue of the students via its embassies in Ankara and Damascus.
He pointed out that the foreign ministry is making contacts with unnamed bodies to secure the safe return of the students to their families.
“Although they [the students] hold foreign passports, they are Sudanese citizens”, he added.
According to press reports, 7 of the students hold British passports, 2 hold Canadian passports while one holds American passport besides 2 holding Sudanese passports.
Ghandour added that his ministry is currently investigating how a female student holding a diplomatic passport was able to leave the country without permission from the foreign ministry.
The minister was alluding to the daughter of the foreign ministry spokesperson Ali al-Sadig who was among the missing students.
According to the newspaper, following the departure of the students last Friday, the Sudanese authorities contacted their Turkish counterparts who took the necessary legal procedures to secure the return of the students.
“The Turkish authorities searched the airplane immediately upon arrival and held the students at the airport and they were referred to investigation. They have been handed over to the Sudanese authorities who transferred them to Khartoum airport,” a Sudanese government source told the newspaper.
The surveillance cameras at Khartoum airport captured images of an unidentified person accompanying the daughter of the foreign ministry’s spokesperson to the plane staircase.
The same person claimed that he is from the protocol affairs division at the foreign ministry, and asked the police officer to complete the departure procedures of the student.
“He accompanied her to the aircraft staircase and then he left the airport,” stressed the sources.
It should be mentioned that several investigation committees are currently seeking to identify that person.
The director of passports department at the ministry of interior, Ahmed Atta al-Manan, on Tuesday formed a committee to interrogate the passports officers at Khartoum airport on the departure of the daughter of the foreign ministry spokesperson without registering her passport information.
Sources say the daughter of the spokesperson used a travel permit signed by a police officer with the rank of colonel, disclosing that the officer who allowed her to depart the country has been referred to investigation.
According to the sources, the officer told the investigation committee that the student informed him that her father is outside the country and she intends to join him but due to time constraints she wasn’t able to obtain a permission of the foreign ministry.
Meanwhile, the returning students pointed that ISIS uses the internet and the social media such as Twitter for recruitment, noting they ask the students who are being recruited to convince other students to join the group considering that this work is a kind of Jihad [holy war].
The group usually targets the sons and daughters of wealthy families besides holders of foreign passports particularly medical students.
ISIS presence in Sudan has made the headlines last March after British media outlets confirmed that nine medical students from Sudanese origins entered Syria via Turkey to work in hospitals under the control of ISIS.
Last month, Sudan’s minister of Higher Education Sumaya Abu-Kushawa accused unnamed circles of actively recruiting students to join ISIS.
At the time, Sudanese second vice-president Hassabo Abdel-Rahman blamed internal and external parties as well as international intelligence agencies for the phenomenon of extremism in the Arab and African communities.
Also, earlier this month sources told Sudan Tribune that an ISIS cell comprised of three Middle Eastern men and an Eritrean were arrested by the Sudanese authorities in the coastal city of Port Sudan on 10 June.
ISIS announced that one of its Sudanese fighters nicknamed Abu al-Fida al-Sudani was killed in their stronghold of al-Riqa.
(ST)