Port Jeff College Student Flees Egypt, Lands Safely in Turkey

Kyleen Burke, a 20 year-old college student from Port Jefferson, touched down in Istanbul, Turkey today after fleeing from the increasingly dangerous protests in Egypt according to her father, James M. Burke.

Kyleen, a political science major at , arrived in Cairo with four other students in the school’s Middle East Studies program on Jan. 11, a little over two weeks before protesters started taking to the streets.

on the story yesterday and contacted Gordon College spokeswoman Jo Kadlecek about the situation.

"Everybody's fine," Kadlecek said. "I'm sure they'll see chaos at the airport, but that's about it."

James Burke said it was a “huge relief” after getting emails from the Middle East Studies program directors today saying his daughter had safely landed in Turkey.

Last Wednesday, Burke started hearing about the protests and he received an email from the program saying that the kids were safe. Then Kyleen also emailed him saying that she was safe. He kept in touch with his daughter through emails and Skype calls on her computer.

The students had been staying in Cairo but last week they were on a field trip to Luxor when they were recalled.

“We felt pretty good because she was going to be out of Cairo,” said Burke about the field trip.

The students took a train back to Cairo but ended up having to stay the night in Cairo train station on Saturday. On Sunday, Burke received a text from his daughter who was using another person’s cell phone. She said that she had made it back to her apartment. That trip from the train station to the apartment was without incident though they did have a military escort.

“She said that the military was good to them. People there like the military,” said Burke. “But they don’t like the police.”

He said that the civilians Kyleen saw in the streets were extremely nice to her and some apologized to the students for what they were going through.

Burke said that when the protests first began he wasn’t all that worried because his daughter was out of Cairo. Then on Saturday he and his wife started getting concerned. Kyleen told her parents that she smelled the tear gas and heard pops that sounded like firecrackers going off.

“I started thinking about what I can do,” Burke said.

The power of a worried parent can never be underestimated. Burke put a call in to the office of Rep. Peter King, R-Seaford to ask for his help in securing his daughter’s safety.

“They sprung right into action,” Burke said. “King called me and I talked to his aide about ten times from Saturday into Sunday.”

King’s office contacted Hillary Clinton’s office at the State Department.

“When I talked to Kyleen, she said. ‘What’s going on? I’m getting calls from the State Department,’” said Burke.

Kyleen, who graduated from in Port Jefferson, was a good student who participated in track, soccer and basketball according to her father. She’s currently a Junior at Gordon College and planned to spend her entire second semester in the Middle East Studies program travelling around the region. One of the places they were going to travel to was Istanbul. She arrived there a little earlier in the semester than she expected because of the protests.

Burke said that there was no indication of any trouble before his daughter left to go to Egypt at the beginning of January.

“A few days before I was checking websites and asking people if there was any reason she shouldn’t go,” he said. “They said no.”

The students in the Middle East Studies program are some of the 88 Gordon students in either domestic or international programs in 20 countries. The Gordon students in Egypt are part of 40 students from Council for Christian Colleges and Universities member schools taking part in the program. All of those students are "safe and well-supervised," according to Lindsey Podguski, International Programs Advisor at the CCCU.

The U.S. Department of State is advising all Americans in Egypt to leave the country as soon as possible.

In an advisory, the State Department said violent demonstrations have occurred in several areas of Cairo, Alexandria and other parts of the country, disrupting travel.

The Egyptian government has imposed a 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. curfew and has interrupted Internet service.

Burke said that he hadn’t actually spoken with his daughter since Sunday.

“I’m hoping to hear from her,” he said. “It’ll be easier now that she’s in Turkey.”

Additional reporting on this story came from and from Hamilton-Wenham Patch.