When junior Virginia Sparks looked out the window of her dorm in Cairo on Jan. 25, she saw fires in every direction.
She now sits in an airport, waiting to come back home, three months earlier than she planned.
UNC students Sparks and Kelsey Jost-Creegan are — or were — studying abroad in Egypt this semester, but protests against the authoritarian government have changed their plans. Both are leaving the country at the earliest opportunity.
The entire region — first Tunisia and now Egypt and Lebanon — has erupted in demonstrations by citizens demanding greater freedom and democracy from their governments. The protests in Egypt began Jan. 25 with thousands of demonstrators on the streets of Cairo and thousands of people in airports, trying to leave.
Protestors demand the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, who has been president of Egypt for 30 years. The country has been in a state of emergency for decades since Mubarak took power.
Many protestors are also angry with the United States, which has financially supported his regime.
The dorm at the American University in Cairo is outside the city, on an island blockaded from the city’s unrest. But Jost-Creegan’s mother, Barbara Jost-Creegan, said the effects of the protests reached as far as the students’ secluded campus.
“There was a lot of activity, a lot of fighting — horrible noises,” she said. “She told me there were a lot of popping sounds happening.”
The Jost-Creegans have been trying to get Kelsey out of Egypt for days. They finally found her a chartered flight on Tuesday with an emergency evacuation company, Barbara said.
