Guinean student cycles across Africa for place at top Islamic university

CAIRO/N’DJAMENA — Mamadou Safaiou Barry was categorized to research Islamic theology at an elite college. Incapable to coordinate a flight to Egpyt from Guinea, he attracted a map of Africa in his spiral note pad and scheme off on a 2nd-hand mountain bike.

Carrying single a adjust of outfit, a flashlight and a screwdriver, the 25-year-old cycled thousands of kilometres across the continent, enacting wearing rainforests, deserts and confrontation zones in the hope of landing a place and alignment a means to assistance it.

4 months and seven countries later on, he is in Cairo through a full scholarship to Al-Azhar University, one of the planet’s earliest and most conspicuous Sunni Muslim picking upwards colleges.

“If you have a readiness, proceed to be through it and be resilient,” Barry declared. “God will aids you.”

Thousands of West Africans like Barry undertake treacherous tours across the Sahara desert each year, brushing for a much more discussed vacancy.

Numerous never earn it. Almost 500 human beings died or disappeared on West African migration routes last year, documents from the International Organisation for Migration validates.