British universities ask PM to help scholarship students leave Gaza - plea for families to be allowed to come too, peace be upon them
Assalamu alaykum - LONDON: Twenty-five Palestinian students from Gaza who earned fully funded scholarships to study at British universities risk losing their places this year unless they can be evacuated from the war-torn territory by the end of this week, university leaders have warned Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The students were offered places for undergraduate, master’s and doctoral study at Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol, Exeter, Glasgow, Sussex and University College London. University chiefs say those places could be forfeited if the students are not on evacuation lists for planned departures on Oct. 22 and 26 and remain trapped in Gaza.
Vice-chancellors and principals from the seven universities have also criticized a government rule that bars these Palestinian students from bringing dependents with them to the UK. They’ve asked ministers to use discretionary powers to allow students’ families to settle alongside them, stressing the humanitarian need. The officials noted that only nine of the students want to bring dependents.
Some doctoral candidates can defer the start of their programmes, but undergraduates and masters students may lose their spots because the next available evacuation lists won’t be ready for another month, the universities warned.
The universities thanked the government for past help with evacuations and for efforts to press for a ceasefire, and requested an urgent update on timelines for getting the remaining students out.
“We are increasingly concerned that some eligible students are yet to be called forward for the evacuations next week, and a small number of students have been given the impossible choice to leave behind their children in order to take up their university places, including babies as young as three months old, or children where there is no other parent alive,” the officials wrote.
UNICEF has plans to evacuate students and families through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Oct. 26, pending approval from the UK Foreign Office. Religious leaders and others have voiced support for the universities’ appeal, saying compassion shouldn’t be blocked by bureaucracy.
May Allah make it easy for the students and their families and grant them safety and justice.
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