On Tuesday, April 25, Defence Cabinet Secretary (CS), Aden Duale, announced that he had received 39 Kenyan students airlifted by a Kenya Airforce plane from war-torn Sudan to Nairobi.
While receiving the first batch after touchdown at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), the Defence CS stated that all the students were rescued from one university called the International University of Africa (IUA).
Located in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, IUA was established 46 years ago, in 1977, under the name the Islamic African Centre.
In 1992, deposed President Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan, upgraded the institution from an institute to a university.
The university was founded to educate young African Muslims using two main languages, Arabic and English.
Since then, the university expanded its faculty to include Shariah and Islamic Studies, education and humanities, pure and applied sciences, engineering, and medicine among others.
Its biggest financial backer is Saudi Arabia followed by Arab States of the Persian Gulf.
According to Edurank, a university ranking platform, IAU is the ninth-best university in Sudan and number 296 in Africa.
It is a member of the Federation of the Universities of the Islamic World and has been active in Islamic higher education in sub-Saharan Africa since it was created.
IUA also runs the College of Education on the island of Zanzibar, Tanzania.
On January 18, 2023, the Ministry of Education advertised 15 scholarship opportunities for Kenyans to study at IUA for the year 2023.
However, the Ministry did not give the number of students who qualified for the scholarships.
