Is Sudan Permitting Students to Join Islamic State?

12 students, who previously attended the University of Medical Sciences and Technology in Khartoum, Sudan, have been reported missing since Friday, June 26. These students reportedly left Sudan sometime during the day on Friday in an effort to travel to Syria to join ISIS. The students were able to fly out of Sudan, and were scheduled to travel through Turkey and then head for Syria.

While more foreigners traveling to join the Islamic State’s fight is worrisome and troubling in and of itself, there is another significant component of this incident. This component is the role that Sudanese top officials may have played.

Ali El Sadig, spokesman for the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reported that “the travel was an organized event with high officials involved, otherwise it would have been impossible for them to travel without being caught”.

Sadig is father to one of the students who has fled Sudan. After learning of his daughter’s departure, Sadig went to the Khartoum airport in hopes of learning more about how she was let out of Sudan. After speaking with airport personnel and security, Sadig found no trace of his daughter on any airport registration documents. Sadig knew that his daughter did not have an “exit stamp”, which one needs in order to be able to leave Sudan, nor did she have a visa for Turkey. Sadig’s daughter was also not checked by customs and immigration officers before boarding.

The only evidence available that confirmed his daughter’s departure was security footage showing her walk past all airport personnel and right aboard the aircraft, an extremely abnormal situation under the highly autocratic Khartoum government, raising the question of whether top officials may have been involved in altering the normal rules and regulations.

This is not the first time students from Sudan have left to join the IS cause. In March of this year, 9 students who also attended UMST, left Sudan to head for Turkey. Syria and the Islamic State were also their end destinations.

“Neighbors and friends [of the 9]…all seemed to lay at least some of the blame on the Islamic Civilization student organization which brought clerics like Jizouli to deliver sermons calling for jihad,” according to one report.

After speculations about some of the activities and guests the organization was hosting rose, the university “halted the activities of the clerics” and “introduced awareness programs”. The university’s response to the speculations did not include shutting the organization down, however.

The Jizouli mentioned refers to Sheikh Mohammad al-Jizouli, a well known Islamist cleric the university had previously hosted. It’s logical to assume that characters such as Jizouli and other guests may have initiated conversations with students about leaving Sudan and taking up jihad. Al-Jizouli is well known cleric who has openly supported the Islamic State, and called for jihadist attack, including against civilians. Al-Jizouli has  been a mainstay on Sudanese television, which is tightly controlled by the government. While Al-Jizouli has been repeatedly arrested after his vocal statements in support of Islamic State have made international news, he has also been later quietly released by Sudanese security forces. Despite his run-ins with security forces, Al-Jizouli is the president of the El Jereif Mosques, which was reportedly founded by President Omar Bashir himself.

It should come as a surprise to no one that Khartoum, a State Sponsor of Terrorism, known for waging multiple genocides, blocking international relief aid and food to its citizens, and bombing businesses and hospitals within its own borders, would be willing to involve itself in recruiting individuals for the Islamic State. The Sudanese government is also a known supporter of “Arabization and Islamization” of Africa.

Sudan has also reportedly played a role in training and support for Boko Haram, now Islamic State’s West African province, according to Nigeria’s former ambassador to Sudan, and in May of 2014 it was reported that a masked man speaking Arabic with a Sudanese accent could be seen providing instruction for Boko Haram fighters, according to the Nigerian army, which acquired the tape. Nigerian military officials have repeatedly claimed that foreign fighters were participating in assisting the Nigerian jihadist group.

Involvement in recruiting for Islamic State fighting forces is just one more major strike against the Sudanese government. It’s also one more reason that our government should be involved in holding President Bashir accountable for the crimes he and his regime have committed.