‘Parents of Jordanians studying in Libya concerned for their children’

AMMAN — Families of Jordanians currently studying in Libya appealed to authorities on Sunday to bring their children home before they become the “next target for Daesh”, according to a parent.

“We fear that Daesh might be looking for Jordanians in Libya to kill, similar to what happened with the Egyptians,” said Mohammad Abu Naji, whose son, Saleh, is studying medicine in the North African country.

In February, Daesh terror group militants said they beheaded 21 Egyptian Copts who were working in Libya.

“Libya has become a lawless country… anything could happen there,” he told The Jordan Times.

Abu Naji, who used to work as a doctor in Libya, said around 30 Jordanians are currently studying in Libya. He claimed that the Higher Education Ministry has refused to admit them to local universities because it says they went to Libya after the revolution that toppled Muammar Qadhafi.

The father of the 21-year-old student noted that his son is in his third year and cannot throw away the education he received so far and “sit at home”.

“Our universities have accommodated people of all nationalities. It should not be difficult to accept 30 Jordanians,” he said.

Higher Education Ministry Secretary General Hani Dmour underlined that universities are open to all students provided that they meet the minimum requirements for each major.

“We have tasked universities to directly accept students who meet the requirements based on the number of seats, but we cannot enrol engineering students, for example, whose Tawjihi [General Secondary Certificate Examination] scores are less than 60 per cent, while the minimum score accepted by the engineering faculty is 80 per cent,” Dmour told The Jordan Times.

He highlighted that stricter criteria are taken into account when accepting medical students, who should apply to university at the start of a new year and not during a semester.

The Foreign Ministry had no available information on the matter when contacted.

Last year, the ministry dispatched a Royal Jordanian aircraft to transport Jordanian students from Yemen back home over security fears.