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UC students return to California after Egypt evacuation
An Egyptian military helicopter hovers over supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood during a rally in support of deposed president Mohamed Morsi outside Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque on July 5, 2013.
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A group of UC study-abroad students who had been evacuated from Egypt are back in California Friday.
The students from UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Barbara were supposed to be in Egypt until mid-July, but were returned home after violence began spread following the ouster of the country's president .
A spokesman for the UC Davis study abroad program told KPCC that the students were in no danger, but that airports had been shut down in the country during past times of turmoil, and the schools had wanted to avoid their being stuck in the country.
RELATED: Calif. students evacuated from Egypt
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Angelica Hernandez, a 5th-year sociology major at UC Berkeley, was in a University of Cairo dorm in Zamelik, an island that's part of Cairo.
"During the night of June 30th and just throughout the week , I would go out and be out and about in Cairo," she said. "And I honestly felt safer there than I do in my own neighborhood."
Despite the recent uprising, Hernandez said, she would not hesitate visiting Egypt again in the future.
"It was an exciting time to be in Egypt, to be honest," she said. "There were some students who weren't part of my program but they were staying at the university and they were at the demonstrations and they were completely safe."
The students were prohibited from participating in the demonstrations.
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