Gazan medical students head home after completing training

Twenty-seven students from Gaza will be heading back home after arriving in 2024 to complete their practicals for medical studies at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa following the destruction of their medical schools during the Gaza war, writes Siyabonga Goni for the Daily Maverick.

The students arrived in South Africa in 2024 to complete their medical studies in order to graduate. Most of the students managed to escape to Egypt through the Rafa border to get to South Africa. Their faculty deans had made arrangements with universities in South Africa to help the students complete their studies.

On 3 May 2025, Gift of the Givers, a non-profit organisation, bade farewell to the students at UCT after a dinner was held to celebrate their milestone after facing hardship and defying the odds by completing their studies despite being away from their families in Gaza for months. Gift of the Givers co-founder Zohra Sooliman told Daily Maverick that many doctors had been killed and hospitals were being targeted during the war in Gaza, and that these students would be the future when the war ended.
Full report on the Daily Maverick site