War signals urgent need for plan to evacuate students

African nations have been evacuating their nationals, including students, from Iran and other countries of the Middle East in the wake of the escalating Israel-US-Iran military conflict.

Against this backdrop, commentators have urged African governments to come up with comprehensive action plans to manage student mobility in high-risk areas.

Dr Mosab Nouraldein Hamad, based at the Centre for Research Excellence of Elsheikh Abdallah Elbadri University in Sudan, told University World News: “With the war going on and the closure of Iranian universities and higher education institutions, along with the near-total internet blackout, international students, including African students, found themselves with no chance to study in-person or remotely.

“While many African students have been repatriated, some students chose to stay behind to avoid wasting years of academic progress or because they could not afford potential return tickets later,” Hamad said.

Divine Edem Kwadzodeh, the secretary general of the All-Africa Students Union, also highlighted the plight of international students during the conflict situation.

“Beyond academic disruption, which placed thousands of African students at risk of delayed graduation or indefinite suspension of their studies, the security situation has exposed students to direct physical risk, with reports of airstrikes in proximity to university campuses and residential areas,” Kwadzodeh said.

Sharon Twine, one of 43 Ugandan students who have recently been repatriated from Iran, confirmed the risk students face: “I am at a loss for words to describe what I experienced. In simple terms, it was scary and traumatising. I would not wish it on anyone.”

Oscar Nyegyema, another repatriated student, who, like Twine, shared his experiences on the Ugandan Ministry of Defence’s YouTube channel, had this to say: “Our university was near a site that was hit. We saw birds scatter, and we felt the ground tremble and shake. We were all scared and devastated. We did not know if we would make it out.”

The majority of the students who returned were on scholarship programmes at Iranian universities. The Ugandan embassy organised their evacuation and transported them by road to Türkiye and, from there, back to Uganda. In June 2025, the same group, which formed part of about 111 Ugandan students in Iran, were also evacuated during US military strikes on Iran.

The vulnerability of students

Kwadzodeh said the war raised concerns about the vulnerability of African students within global mobility systems, particularly in regions prone to geopolitical instability and that, beyond the evacuation of students in the Iran war, governments had to address the academic consequences of displacement.

“This includes negotiating academic continuity arrangements with alternative higher education institutions, recognising credits already earned, and ensuring that students are not forced to restart their programmes. Financial support mechanisms will also be critical, particularly for students whose scholarships or stipends may be disrupted.”

An action plan could also include risk assessment protocols, pre-departure advisories, insurance and contingency planning, and stronger diplomatic engagement with host countries, he said.

He said that many of the African students were beneficiaries of government-sponsored scholarships, and, with Iran’s fiscal priorities shifting towards wartime exigencies, there was a real possibility that funding streams for international students may be affected.

Hamad also highlighted some of the challenges students are facing.

“Most African students who decided to stay rely on Iranian government scholarships, which are now in jeopardy as the country focuses its resources on the war effort,” he said.

“While the world is watching the widening of the US-Israel-Iran conflict, fear increases over safety of African students who were unable to move out or decided to stay with the hope that the war would come to an end. It remains to be seen what [happens] next for the African students who fled from Iran,” he said.

Echoing Kwadzodeh, Hamad said African universities should learn from best practices that were used to deal with students who had to flee conflicts in Ukraine and Sudan.

African students in Iran

Iran has been accepting African students at its universities and has been establishing technological and cultural partnerships with several countries on the continent, according to a DW (Deutsche Welle) article titled ‘How the US-Israel war with Iran is reshaping Africa’.

As Hamad and Kwadzodeh pointed out, Iran uses government-sponsored scholarships as a soft-power tool in Africa to foster political goodwill, influence, and educational ties. This applies, in particular, to countries like Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania, according to a 2023 report titled ‘Iran's public diplomacy and religious soft power in Africa’.

It noted that scholarships offer full or partial tuition waivers via the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology and affiliated organisations, as well as boarding for undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

The majority of African students, who are among the 60,000 foreign students in the region, are associated with Al-Mustafa International University, which has 17 branches across Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Niger and Tanzania, in addition to its main campuses in Iran, according to a 2024 study titled, ‘Al-Mustafa University in Africa: Origins, Role, and Influence’.

The university has a presence in about 30 African countries and claims to have 5,000 African students enrolled, including 2,000 studying in Iran who return home several times a year for missionary purposes, according to a report titled How Iran Exports its Ideology.

Emergency evacuations

Several African nations have established crisis units and initiated emergency evacuations for their citizens, including students.

These African countries include Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. Due to the flight bans and ‘complex’ security situation, most evacuations have relied on difficult overland routes to neighbouring countries like Türkiye and Armenia.

While some countries have been focused on evacuating citizens, others have been forced to look at the consequences of the war on their internal affairs.

In Nigeria, a surge in the petroleum price has set off increases in the cost of transportation, food commodities and other daily essentials. Before the war erupted, a litre of petrol in Nigeria which was sold for NGN800 (about $0.58) but now costs between NGN1,170 and NGN1,300, depending on the region.

Makama Favour, a fourth-year student of public health at Taraba State University, Jalingo, explained how the war has impacted her as a student.

“Boarding a bus to and fro my department used to cost NGN400 and it’s now NGN600 with a lot of negotiation with the drivers,” she told University World News. The prices of local rice and beans have changed from NGN1,700 and NGN1,300 to NGN2,100 and NGN1,700 respectively, she said.

Dr Audu Bello, an economic expert and economics lecturer at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto said the disruption in global oil, or petroleum exports, affected “everyone”. “Even if the war is far from Nigeria, the impact is not far from Nigeria because we export our crude and import a refined product,” he said.

Bello cautioned that prices of food commodities in Nigeria will continue to rise due to the petroleum price surge caused by the adverse effects of the war, which can, in turn, worsen inflation and deepen the country’s cost-of-living crisis.