"We have contacted the Gontor alumni living there, but they said the (Damascus) situation is still safe, so they are reluctant to return home," the assistant for foreign cooperation affairs to the institute`s rector, Amal Fathullah told ANTARA here on Sunday.
In the meantime, the Indonesian embassy in Damascus has evacuated around 233 Indonesian nationals from Syria since January this year.
"The evacuations were conducted by the embassy, and 400 other Indonesians have been returned to Indonesia by their employers,"
Indonesian Ambassador to Syria Wahib Abdul Jawad said.
According to the embassy`s data, there are a total of 12,500 Indonesians in Syria. Most of them are migrant workers and students.
The number of Gontor institute`s alumni who pursue their study in Syria reached 16, Amal said, adding that five of them had returned home.
According to Amal, the Gontor institute had no intention to ask them to return home, because it was the Indonesian embassy`s authority whether or not to evacuate them.
Amal said further that Gontor would keep monitoring the students in cooperation with the Indonesian embassy.
In addition, the driver of the Indonesian embassy, Abdul Rojak Harbi - a Syrian national - was shot dead in Damascus while he was driving the embassy`s car to a workshop.
The Indonesian envoy to Syria, Wahib Abdul Jawad, told ANTARA on Friday that Harbi, 56, who had worked for the embassy since 1985, was buried near his home in Damascus. (*)
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
