08:10, 26 April 2019

Ingush delegation leaves Magas for Egypt to negotiate students' fate

Law enforcers of Egypt. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Ingush officials and a well-known theologian have left for Egypt to negotiate the return of the arrested Ingush students to their homeland. The young people have been charged with extremism, espionage and links with "Islamic State"*, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has announced.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on April 24, relatives of four Ingush students arrested in Egypt reported deterioration of their health. After a long hunger strike, the young people were transferred to the medical unit of the Cairo prison.

In August 2018, five young people from Ingushetia were detained in Egypt. They had left for Egypt without the knowledge of their parents and studied in Cairo at mosques. On April 9, four of them were accused of extremism. The fate of the fifth detainee, Khizir Dugiev, remains unknown. On April 2, the detained students went on a hunger strike, demanding to release them. The young people are handcuffed to beds and left without water, their relatives have reported. On April 18, it became known that the arrested young people stopped their hunger strike.

The members of the Ingush delegation plan to meet Sergey Kirpichenko, the Russia's Ambassador to Egypt, and discuss the issue of returning the young people to their homeland.

The delegation includes Luay Youssef, an assistant-adviser to the head of the region, an employee of the regional Ministry for Nationalities and Magomed Kharsiev, a well-known theologian," the "Interfax-South" reports with reference to a source from the administration of Yunus-Bek Evkurov, the head of Ingushetia.

According to the Russia's MFA, the Ingushes arrested in Egypt, are charged, apart from propaganda of extremism, with espionage and participation in the activities of the IS*. This information obtained from the press and information department of the MFA in response to a request of the journalist, Maxim Shevchenko, was posted by him in his Instagram.

* Islamic State (IS, earlier – the ISIL) recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia by the court

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 25, 2019 at 10:59 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Author: Magomed Tuayev

Source: CK correspondent