Ahmed, the president of the University of Maryland’s Sudanese Student Organization, said they had to gather thousands of dollars because of how expensive it is to get out of danger and into neighboring Egypt. It took Ahmed’s family multiple days to leave through various means of transportation, the sophomore physics major said.

“They were fortunate that they had someone to offer them that money,” Ahmed said. “Most people don’t have that.”

More than 40 students and university community members attended a roundtable Thursday about the civil war in Sudan. Since the war started two and a half years ago, the fighting has killed at least 40,000 people and displaced more than 12 million others, according to the Associated Press. Aid groups said the true death toll could be much higher.

The United Nations’ children’s agency head also said in March that the war in Sudan created the world’s largest and most devastating humanitarian crisis in history.

The roundtable was hosted by NoirUnited, a global development organization mobilizing African diaspora communities across the world, in partnership with multiple student groups, including the Sudanese Student Organization. Attendees discussed the history of Sudan and the crisis.

[UMD community members discuss deadly protests in Nepal, future of country]

The war between the Sudanese military and the Rapid Support Forces — a paramilitary group — began when the previous allies turned on one another in a struggle for power, according to the Associated Press. They were meant to oversee a peaceful government transition together in 2019, but accumulated tension instead led to war.

The Rapid Support Forces said Thursday it has agreed to a U.S.-led mediator group’s humanitarian truce, the Associated Press reported. A Sudanese military official said that the army will only agree to a truce when the Rapid Support Forces completely withdraw from civilian areas and give up weapons, according to the outlet.

The truce comes after the Rapid Support Forces took control of el-Fasher last month, a city that has been under siege for the last 18 months and was the last Sudanese military stronghold in the western Darfur region, the Associated Press reported.

During the assault, the Rapid Support Forces reportedly killed 460 patients in the Saudi Hospital and shot and beat people in their homes and on the streets. Satellite images appear to show mass burials conducted in the region, the outlet reported.

Ibrahim Alduma, a Sudanese human rights advocate, presented an extended history of the war in Sudan at the roundtable.

Alduma moved to Kenya from Sudan in 2023 where he worked with Sudanese youth. He continued working on consensus building and coalitions between different bodies in multiple countries and came to the U.S. in 2025 where he continues his advocacy.

Alduma told The Diamondback that while his family fortunately got out of Sudan, he still has neighbors and friends there. He said nobody can hear their voices, so it’s his responsibility to spread their voices to people from different areas.

“Sudanese civilians are suffering and they need any kind of advocacy or any kind of donation for those people just to stay alive in the future,” Alduma told attendees.

[UMD students honor lost Palestinian lives with campus art demonstration]

During the presentation, Alduma emphasized that Sudan has a lot of natural resources which multiple parties, including the United Arab Emirates, take advantage of for their personal interests.

“[The UAE are] killing Sudanese people to get their resources, and to do it, abolishing their reputation in the world,” Alduma told The Diamondback. “People must know that they are committing crimes in Sudan.”

Sudan filed a case at the top United Nations court in March that alleged the UAE of breaching the genocide convention by arming and funding the Rapid Support Forces, according to the Associated Press. U.S. intelligence assessments for many months have found that the UAE has been sending weapons to Rapid Support Forces. The UAE denies these claims.

Roundtable attendees were broken up into three groups and given multiple questions to discuss with themes including understanding the Sudanese crisis, humanitarian and policy action and diaspora and identity.

Akunna Okonkwo, a research and programs volunteer for NoirUnited, said the organization wants to empower the youth and college-aged students by giving them a platform.

“Our goal with this event is to have people feel empowered, find ways that they can try to connect with the Sudanese cause and also other causes within the continent,” the junior public health science major said.

At the roundtable, Sudanese Student Organization cabinet member Basmah Elradi shared a project she created for her capstone last semester that focused on her parents’ stories and memories in Sudan. Elradi said seeing the pain that her parents were going through motivated her to work on this project.

Elradi also has family members who fled Sudan during the civil war.

“The good memories that they have in Sudan, and of their childhoods and of their children’s childhoods, deserve to be preserved, especially because we don’t have a Sudan to go back to right now,” the junior neuroscience major said.

Violent protests in Nepal resulted in at least 72 deaths and the destruction of government buildings and politicians’ homes, the Associated Press reported. A government ban on some social media platforms earlier this month sparked the widespread demonstrations against political corruption.

Dipsu Shrestha, the Nepali Student Association’s culture chair, presented a slideshow to the attendees at the roundtable, which discussed the history of Nepal and context behind current events.

The senior public health practice major said it was important to host this discussion to commemorate the lives lost in the protests and because corruption has been an ongoing issue in Nepal.

“There were so many young lives that were lost, and I feel like obviously they’re gone, but I wanted to make it feel like they left for an impact that they made,” she said.

[UMD students honor lost Palestinian lives with campus art demonstration]

Suyog Gyawali graduated from this university last year but said he comes back for Nepali Student Union events because they keep him closer to his country.

Gyawali said what happened in Nepal is emotional and thinks it’s important to emphasize that the protests are about corruption, not only the government’s social media ban.

The Nepalese government announced a social media ban Sept. 4 on platforms including Facebook, X and YouTube because the companies failed to register with the government. The restriction was lifted after police opened fire and killed at least 19 protesters on Sept. 8, according to the Associated Press.

The prime minister’s headquarters, the offices of the president, the supreme court, key government ministries and several police stations were set on fire by protesters on Sept. 9, the day after police shot at protesters, according to the Associated Press.

Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli resigned, and Sushila Karki — the country’s former supreme court chief justice — was named prime minister on Sept. 12, becoming the country’s first woman to hold that title. Parliamentary elections will take place March 5.

Nayan Kadabha, co-president of the Asian American Policy Association, said they pitched the Nepali Student Association collaboration during the roundtable. The group has been talking about advocacy in the local area and thought this conversation would gain traction in the community.

[New UMD Unity Center celebrates culture, creates gathering space for students]

“We wanted to reach out to [the Nepali Student Association] to make sure their voices were heard and they were included in the discussion because that was really important,” Kadabha said.

Kadabha said they learned a lot about Nepal in the discussion and that many people at the event had the opportunity to speak on the recent events.

Talking points brought up during the roundtable included effects of the social media ban, comparisons between Nepali protests and U.S. protests and dealing with corrupt politicians moving forward.

Shrestha, the Nepali Student Association culture chair, presented three ways students can help the situation in Nepal — raising political awareness, educating themselves on Nepal’s constitution and donating to help rebuild the country’s infrastructure.

Some attendees at the roundtable expressed hope for a positive future in Nepal in the aftermath of recent events.

“My biggest hope would be to have a stable country, a peaceful country with no corruption and just patriotic people who want to do right by the country,” Gyawali said.

Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. comes more than two months after his deportation sparked national controversy and condemnation from Democratic politicians and immigration advocates after the Trump administration admitted it deported him due to an “administrative error.”

During a press conference Friday, Bondi said that on May 21 a federal grand jury from the Middle District of Tennessee delivered a sealed indictment charging Abrego Garcia with alien smuggling and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling.

The indictment alleges that from about 2016 through 2025, Abrego Garcia and others not named in the indictment transported undocumented migrants to the U.S. from countries including El Salvador, Honduras and Ecuador for financial gain.

The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop when Tennessee Highway Patrol officers stopped Abrego Garcia for speeding and noticed eight other passengers inside the vehicle whom Abrego Garcia said he was driving from Texas to Maryland for construction work, according to a report the Department of Homeland Security released in April.

[Trump administration lists 18 Maryland cities, counties as sanctuary jurisdictions]

During the stop, officers voiced their suspicions of human trafficking as the passengers had no luggage and all listed the same home address, but left Abrego Garcia with a warning citation for driving with an expired driver’s license, according to the report.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said the charges are “baseless,” and that no jury will see the evidence and agree that he’s “the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy,” the Associated Press reported Friday.

After presenting the government of El Salvador with an arrest warrant for Abrego Garcia, Bondi said El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele agreed to release him to U.S. custody.

Bondi said Abrego Garcia, who returned to the U.S. on Friday, will be prosecuted in the U.S. If convicted, Bondi said the government expects Abrego Garcia will be returned to El Salvador upon the conclusion of his sentence.

“This is what American justice looks like,” Bondi said.

In 2019, Abrego Garcia was arrested by Prince George’s County Police and later turned over to ICE custody. After a confidential informant alleged that Abrego Garcia was a member of the international gang MS-13’s New York chapter, the Department of Homeland Security began deportation proceedings against him, according to the Associated Press.

But Abrego Garcia never lived in New York, the news agency reported.

[U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen introduces legislation to force Trump to obey court orders]

An immigration judge protected Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador later that year because he faced a “clear probability of persecution” if returned to the country, according to court documents.

But in March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Abrego Garcia without an arrest warrant and began deportation proceedings against him despite the order protecting him from removal to El Salvador, according to court documents.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration in April to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. In a memo attached to a ruling, she wrote Abrego Garcia’s deportation came “without notice, legal justification, or due process.”

The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed her ruling on April 10 that the federal government must facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.

In a statement after the announcement Friday, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-M.d.) wrote that the Trump administration appears to have “finally relented” to demands for it to comply with court orders and due process rights.

“As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all,” Van Hollen, who travelled to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia in April, wrote. “The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”

ISSS director Susan-Ellis Dougherty advised international students to attend all scheduled visa appointments and continue to submit any outstanding immigration documents, according to the email. She added that students without a set appointment should plan to schedule one as soon as they’re available, and recommended students and scholars seeking visas to contact ISSS to further discuss immigration options.

The email comes after the Trump administration announced it would begin to “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese international students across the country.

In a statement Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the revocations are set to target Chinese students “with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.” The Department of State will also revise the criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications for students from China or Hong Kong, Rubio wrote.

[Trump administration to begin ‘aggressively’ revoking Chinese students’ visas]

Dougherty wrote that ISSS is closely monitoring the changes to student visas, and encouraged international students to regularly check its website for updates and information on visa revocations.

She also recommended any students from China or Hong Kong contact ISSS if they have any concerns about their student status or receive notice from the State Department about a visa revocation.

Chinese students made up the second-largest group — more than 20 percent — of international students at this university during the fall 2024 semester, The Diamondback previously reported. China is also the second-largest country of origin for international students in the U.S., the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

International students are encouraged to reach out to the university’s counseling center and various student support resources if needed, Dougherty said.

“We recognize that this changing and uncertain immigration environment is stressful,” Dougherty wrote. “Our university community is here to support your academic and personal success.”

The report would require a statement on El Salvador’s human rights practices, ways the United States has promoted human rights in the Central American country and how the administration is protecting U.S. residents from being sent to El Salvador.

The legislation — introduced by Democrats Van Hollen, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and California Sen. Alex Padilla — would prohibit the Trump administration from sending security assistance to El Salvador if it does not make the report.

This legislation comes after at least two Maryland residents were deported to El Salvador despite court orders protecting them from deportation.

[Trump administration deports another Maryland man in violation of court settlement]

The case of one of the two men — Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia — has received worldwide attention after Trump’s administration admitted he was deported due to an “administrative error.”

“If you trample over his constitutional rights, you threaten them for every American and everybody who resides in America,” Van Hollen said during a Thursday press conference announcing the legislation.

The Trump administration and Salvadoran government have said they do not plan to return Abrego Garcia, who was deported to the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center in March, despite court orders that the U.S. government must facilitate his return.

Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador last month, after the senator spoke to the country’s vice president. After their meeting, Van Hollen said Abrego Garcia has been moved to a different prison in the country.

[Sen. Chris Van Hollen meets with wrongly deported Maryland man in El Salvador]

Within 10 days of filing the legislation, the sponsors can force vote on the resolution on the Senate floor because it is filed under the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act.

“Our pitch to our colleagues will be, ‘Why wouldn’t you want a human rights report?’” Kaine said during the press conference. “If Americans are being sent there, you would want a human rights report about the conditions.”

No Republicans have said they will support the resolution, Kaine confirmed.

The resolution will be filed in the House of Representatives by Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro.

Several organizations, including Terps for Israel and this university’s Jewish Student Union, hosted the event. During his talk, Gabay detailed his firsthand experiences from the attack and how he has attempted to process the events since.

Gabay attended the Tribe of Nova music festival in southern Israel, where Hamas killed at least 364 people and took more than 40 hostage in its 2023 attack, according to the Associated Press. Multiple of Gabay’s friends were killed or taken hostage during the attack, he said.

Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took about 250 people hostage in its attack on Israel, according to the Associated Press. Israel declared war on Hamas the next day and its military forces have killed more than 44,500 Palestinians in Gaza since, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Gabay said he didn’t initially plan to attend the music festival, but his ex-girlfriend convinced him. Hamas’ attack took place on the festival’s second day, while Gabay and his friends were in a nearby parking lot, he said.

“I just started to see things falling in the sky. [I don’t] really understand what I’m seeing right now until I was told it was thousands of rockets flying above my head,” Gabay said. “I was really nervous. I told Maya, ‘I want to go home now, what’s going on?’”

[UMD task force releases findings to address antisemitism, Islamophobia]

Gabay and his friends drove away and eventually found a shelter on the roadside to hide, he said.

After leaving the shelter and running through a field, Gabay heard screams and gunshots, he recalled. He then had a frantic phone call with his mother.

“I was terrified by the fact she might hear me getting killed when she’s on the phone,” Gabay said.

Gabay and his friends finally sought refuge in the nearby town of Patish after walking for about four hours before armed rescue buses came to rescue them, he said.

Terps for Israel vice president Elle Schanzer said Gabay’s story brings students’ attention to how life changed in an instant for festival attendees.

“We can’t forget what happened on Oct. 7,” Schanzer, a sophomore enrolled in letters and sciences, told The Diamondback. “His story brings to life that people who are just going to a music festival were brutally murdered just for listening to music.”

[UMD SGA fails to advance resolution calling on divestment from defense companies]

In the days after the attack, Gabay realized what he had lived through, he said. Since Oct. 7, 2023, Gabay has left his job and focused on healing from his trauma and telling his story, he said.

Terps for Israel education chair Bailey Spitz said Wednesday’s event was important because students could hear firsthand from people impacted by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack and truly understand what survivors experienced.

Spitz, a junior government and politics major, said she was inspired by Gabay’s healing journey since the attack.

“As much pain and sadness and hardship there is from Oct. 7 and everything that’s happened since then, there’s also an outlook that you can have of, ‘what can I do to make a positive difference and make things better?’” Spitz told The Diamondback.

Gabay concluded his speech by telling students how he has coped since Oct. 7.

“I think it’s important for us to [remember the attack], and I also understand that we need to keep life,” Gabay said. “We need to keep smiling, to keep dancing, to keep laughing. The power of life is more powerful than anything.”

University of Maryland student Dalya Adwan planned to bring gifts to each of her cousins on her next trip to Gaza.

Adwan, who was born in Gaza, has a list on her phone with each of her cousins’ names and their dedicated presents, which range from rollerblades to sketchbooks. But since last October, Israel’s war in Gaza has devastated her family.

At least 12 of Adwan’s family members, including some of her cousins, have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, she said.

“You hear about one death of somebody you care about, and then the next day, or the next month, you hear about somebody else that you care about,” Adwan, a human-computer interaction graduate student, said. “We haven’t been able to even begin mourning because we just keep losing family members.”

Israel’s military forces have killed more than 43,800 Palestinians in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the Associated Press reported Monday. Israel declared war on Hamas the next day, according to the Associated Press.

The rising death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza have left many university community members grieving.

Fouad Ayoub, whose mother is Palestinian, said many of his family members live under a “heightened sense of fear,” as they deal with tragedy. The violence has disrupted his uncle’s business in East Jerusalem, the senior aerospace engineering and computer science major said.

The impact of Israel’s offensive in Gaza goes beyond the high death toll, Ayoub said. People’s suffering in Gaza should not be minimized to a number, he said.

[Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist commends student protests at UMD event supporting Gaza]

Hassan Edwan, Adwan’s brother and a machine learning graduate student, said he stopped going to class after he learned some of his cousins in Gaza were killed in an airstrike. The continued violence has taken a toll on his family in the United States, he said.

“You could see on their faces,” Edwan said. “Their eyes were sunken and looked [like] they were sobbing for weeks.”

Edwan and Adwan said living far from their family has made it difficult to cope with the loss.

Most of the siblings’ family lives in Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip. Adwan said she cherishes her memories of visiting the beach and spending time with her family in Gaza.

In recent months, Rafah has become a symbol of the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Last spring, Rafah sheltered about 1.4 million Palestinians who had been displaced by the war, according to the Associated Press. In May, Israel’s military forces invaded Rafah, and about 50,000 civilians were in the city as of July, the Associated Press reported.

More than 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza, about 90 percent of the region’s population, have been displaced since Hamas’ 2023 attack. Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 people hostage during the attack, according to the Associated Press.

The Associated Press reported in October that about 66 percent of Gaza’s structures, including more than 215,000 housing units, have sustained damage as a result of Israel’s ensuing offensive.

Many houses owned by Edwan and Adwan’s family members, including both of their parents’ homes, have been destroyed by the barrage of Israeli airstrikes, Edwan said. Most of his family members have resorted to living in tents, he added.

When Adwan last visited Gaza in 2018, she’d walk by the construction site of the house her grandparents were building after their children had grown up.

“[My grandparents] were really happy about it, because they finally had enough money to build their house,” Adwan recalled. “Sometimes when we were walking outside, they’d just be like, ‘look, it’s in progress.’”

Her grandparents finished building their home about two years ago, but multiple bombings have since destroyed it, Adwan said. The destruction in Gaza has made her feel hopeless, she said.

“My family back home is struggling. They can’t get an education. They barely have food to eat,” Adwan said. “It’s just heartbreaking.”

[Hundreds of UMD community members gather to honor people killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023]

Nutrition and food science professor Nadine Sahyoun, a Palestinian American, said she has felt a range of emotions, from helplessness to anger in the past year. The scale of the damage across Gaza, especially in schools, has been upsetting, Sahyoun added.

More than 94 percent of schools in Gaza have been damaged since Israel declared war last October, according to an October 2024 report from the Global Education Cluster, a group of aid organizations led by UNICEF and Save the Children.

“I’ve always been an activist and working towards human rights for Palestinians,” she said. “But this last year has been tremendously devastating.”

Sahyoun’s family left Haifa, a city in present-day Israel, as refugees in 1948 during the Nakba — “catastrophe” in Arabic. The Nakba describes the mass displacement of about 700,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War after Israel was established, according to the Associated Press.

In the past year, this university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter has hosted protests and vigils to mourn Palestinians killed by Israel.

Students at this university are “the leaders of the future,” which is why Sayoun feels especially proud they are expressing their anger at the conditions Palestinians face. Their advocacy makes Sayoun feel hopeful for Palestinians’ future.

Sophomore computer science major Dalia Bader, who has family living in Gaza, said many of her relatives must continue to relocate because of Israel’s sustained bombing of the region. Her family members, who are living in tents, struggle to find basic necessities like food and clean water, she said.

“The scarcity of resources is unreal,” Bader said. “Every day is a fight for survival.”

Bader has tried to stay in contact with her aunt and cousins, but the unstable internet connection in Gaza has made communication difficult. Bader said she lives in a constant state of anxiety and grief.

Keeping up with her classes and daily life has been “emotionally exhausting,” Bader said. Not only are members of her family living through “unimaginable conditions,” she said, but some of them have been killed.

“Don’t let this be just another tragedy that will fade away,” Bader said. “We must stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza and all those affected by this ongoing injustice.”

The 24-year-old public policy graduate student competed as a fencer in the 2024 Paralympic Games. Hanssen was the youngest member of the United States’ wheelchair fencing team and was the only student or alum from this university to compete in the games.

“I am still processing that happened,” Hanssen said. “It feels good, but it’s been just a surreal experience.”

His first bout in the men’s individual sabre B event was on Sept. 3 at Paris’ Grand Palais stadium, where he lost to eventual gold medalist Feng Yanke, who represented China. In the event, which is one of three competitive fencing types, fencers use sabre weapons to hit their opponent above the waist.

Hanssen won his next match and eventually placed 10th in the event. Over the next four days, Hanssen also placed 16th in the men’s individual epee event and ninth in the men’s team foil competition.

“I’m quite happy with how I fenced,” Hanssen said. “Definitely showed a lot of improvement.”

Hanssen used to sword fight with his friends and family as a child, he said.

He began historical fencing, or European martial arts, as a high school sophomore and quickly found a passion for the sport. He began to compete in 2018 and joined this university’s fencing club during his freshman year.

Hanssen competed in the 2024 Paralympic wheelchair fencing qualifying cycle, which took place in the two years before the Paris games. In May, Hanssen won zonal championships in São Paulo, which qualified him for the Paralympic team.

[New sports apparel store to receive grant from College Park]

After he qualified, Hanssen said he spent the bulk of his summer training with U.S. parafencing head coach Eric Soyka as well as his training partner Matthew Chin, a sophomore finance major at this university.

Working with Hanssen is “absolutely wonderful,” Soyka said. The pair have trained across the country in Arizona, New York and Colorado.

“He’s able to explain and express where [his] limitations may be,” Soyka said. “He’s willing to try ideas to see if there’s going to be new ways of helping him get something better.”

Hanssen received support from his fencing club colleagues at this university while he competed in Paris.

Peter DeLalio, the fencing club’s president, said many members carefully watched the competition and were impressed with Hanssen’s skill and power.

“Trying to do the moves that he’s doing and the people that he’s facing are doing is almost impossible,” the junior chemistry, economics and math major said. “It’s a league of its own.”

When he wasn’t traveling internationally to compete, Hanssen taught new fencing club members who showed up to practice consistently, DeLalio noted.

[UMD construction round-up: Purple Line, new athletic centers see progress]

Hanssen would conduct private lessons and help club members with their technique, DeLalio said. He added that Hanssen’s advanced level allowed him to catch mistakes that others wouldn’t notice.

“If you met a member of fencing club and they’ve been there for a year or longer, they have been taught by Noah at some point or at least had the chance to face him,” DeLalio said.

Brian Falvey, the fencing club’s sabre team captain, said the whole club was excited for Hanssen to compete in the games.

Hanssen’s expertise in bladework was an asset to the club, Falvey, a senior mechanical engineering major, said.

“At the beginning, our footwork wasn’t amazing,” Falvey said.“But even though our footwork was atrocious, we were really good at bladework because Noah could teach us bladework.”

Hanssen said most of his parafencing experience has likely been against able-bodied opponents. While able-bodied fencing emphasizes footwork, parafencing focuses on bladework, he said.

Hanssen said he left Paris proud of his performance, but always looks to improve.

Though he has not ruled out competing in the 2028 Paralympic Games in Los Angeles, Hanssen said he wants to focus on his master’s degree.

Hanssen returned from Paris on Monday and attended his first class of the semester later that night, he said.

“The introductions of ‘Hey sorry, I’m back from the Paralympics,’ are just gonna be a weird thing for everyone,” he said.

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this story misspelled Eric Soyka’s last name. This story has been updated.

Now, that same province is flooded with debris after an earthquake struck Morocco on Friday. The quake has killed almost 3,000 people, according to The Washington Post. The magnitude 6.8 earthquake, which struck close to Marrakech, Morocco, also injured more than 2,500 people and was the strongest to strike the country in a century, The Washington Post reported.

“Each time the death toll increases, my heart is broken and saddened,” said Haoudi, who moved from Morocco last year to attend the University of Maryland.

After the earthquake, this university’s International Students and Scholar Services office sent an email to university community members from Morocco, according to Jody Heckman-Bose, the associate director of the office. The email offered support services and mentioned that a Moroccan student — Haoudi — expressed interest in starting fundraising efforts.

[UMD community reflects on being named nation’s most LGBTQ+-friendly college]

“I feel a little bit helpless now because I’m far. I wish I was in Morocco to give a helping hand,” Haoudi said. “Even though it’s the other side of the world, we are all in this together.”

Haoudi and other Moroccan community members plan to host a fundraising event on Monday, Sept. 25 in H.J. Patterson Hall. The event will showcase a Moroccan movie and feature Moroccan food and music to highlight the culture’s beauty, Haoudi said.

Donations from the event will go towards a GoFundMe created by Moroccan students in the United States and Canada. This university is listed on the GoFundMe page as one of 22 schools where students have mobilized to support Morocco.

Jelena Dakovic, a communications coordinator for this university’s architecture school, is also helping plan the fundraiser. She believes it is important to focus on raising funds for urgent needs those impacted by the earthquake are facing.

Dakovic, who grew up in Morocco, cried as she watched videos of Moroccans rummaging through what was left of their homes and pulling bodies from the rubble in the earthquake’s aftermath.

The sight gave Dakovic flashbacks to when her family drove up the High Atlas Mountain roads, which are now lined with ruins from the disaster.

“I was just there like three months ago,” Dakovic said. “My family and I would go up to the Atlas Mountains almost every winter growing up, so it’s just bringing back these flooded memories.”

[Less food waste, bike lane advocacy among UMD SGA’s sustainability priorities]

This university’s chapter of Helping Hand for Relief and Development, as well as the Muslim Students’ Association are also supporting Moroccan victims by placing donation boxes for clothes in the Musallah, a Muslim prayer space located in Cole Field House.

Volunteers from both groups will eventually pack the boxes and ship them directly to the affected areas in Morocco, according to junior neurobiology and physiology major Mustafa Khalid, a co-president of this university’s chapter of Helping Hand for Relief and Development.

Both student groups and Muslim associations at other universities in Maryland are also supporting the national Helping Hand for Relief and Development organization’s fundraiser.

“[This university has] a number of students who are from the North Africa region, who are specifically from Morocco,” Khalid said. “I think as a community, it’s very important that we support the families and loved ones, the cultures of the people who surround us.”

In response to the earthquake, Zakariya Kmir, an alum of this university, also started a GoFundMe that has garnered more than $13,000 donations in the past five days. The money will go directly to local organizations in Marrakech to help victims with physical and mental health relief.

It will be a long-term effort to address the earthquake’s physical and emotional impacts, Kmir said. The victims will be suffering for many months, he added.

“This is something that was completely unexpected,” Kmir said. “You can imagine it has a huge emotional toll, a psychological toll on people.”

This university has been a member of Universitas 21, a group of universities from around the globe aiming to exchange knowledge internationally, since 2013. Its Three Minute Thesis Competition challenges doctoral students to explain their thesis and research in just three minutes.

Robyn Kotzker, program director of the graduate school’s funding opportunities office, said this competition is a way for students to gain both exposure for their research and experience in talking about their thesis in an engaging yet understandable way for non-specialist audiences.

Rothman said being able to communicate research to a broad audience was an important skill to have.

“We think what we’re doing is important, and if you want that knowledge to make a difference in the world, then you need to share it,” Rothman said. “If you’re doing excellent research and nobody gets what you’re doing, it’s not going to have an impact.”

Rothman, a doctoral student in the environmental science and technology department, presented her thesis about mosquitoes and how their diseases disproportionately affect lower income communities.

[UMD iSchool introduces technology and information design major]

“Mosquitoes are everywhere, and they are both a nuisance and a public health threat to all communities, but not equally. So, I think this is something of interest to all humans,” Rothman said.

Rothman believes her work is important to focus on as a society to solve that injustice. One of the major ways to combat mosquito infestations is through source reduction. This happens when people try to reduce mosquito populations on their own property by treating water containers because mosquitoes breed in standing water such as pools.

The competition is first held at the college and university levels. After Rothman won on the college level, she was among several students awarded on the university level. However, only one student can represent the university at the global competition, and the graduate school chose Rothman.

The university helped Rothman produce a professional video to submit to the global competition where she faces 19 other competitors from universities around the world with research across all fields.

The university offered many services, such as workshops in writing and time to meet with an oral communications fellow, to students competing, Kotzker said.

In preparation , Rothman shared her presentation with her advisor and peers to ensure the simplified scientific aspects of her speech were accurate. She also shared it with family and friends to see if it was clear and understandable to people outside of her field.

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Paul Leisnham, Rothman’s advisor, described Rothman as self-motivated and inquisitive.

“She may have bounced a few ideas off me here and there, but she entirely prepared it herself and practiced it and took the initiative,” Leisnham, an environmental science and technology professor, said.

Although Rothman said she hopes people vote for her, she also wants them to watch the other competition entries to learn about the wide variety of research other students are working on.

“Being able to get all these little snippets of incredible research going on all over the world in all different subjects. It’s educational, and it’s exciting to see how much good people are trying to do in the world, especially when the world can seem very tough sometimes,” Rothman said.

The last student from this university who won the Universitas 21 Three Minute Thesis Competition was Samuel Ramsey in 2017. Ramsey won the Judge’s First Place and the People’s Choice awards.

Voting for this year’s People’s Choice Award ends on Oct. 5.

This story has been updated.