Updated

More than 20 British medical students at a Sudan university have abandoned their studies and joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

The students, mostly children of medical professionals from the U.K., appear to be among the largest group collectively recruited by ISIS, according to an investigative report by Britain’s Sunday Times.

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The recruits, including three sets of siblings as well as five women, were enrolled at Sudan’s University of Medical Sciences and Technology in Khartoum studying to be doctors dentists and pharmacists.

Most of the students were of British-Sudanese origin.

Sudan is one of seven countries named under a travel ban to the U.S. by US President Donald Trump, just weeks after the outgoing Obama administration had said it would lift sanctions against the North African nation in response to the country’s fight against the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.

British authorities believe the recruits entered Islamic State territories in phases beginning March 2015, and most have been deployed by ISIS in medical facilities controlled by the group in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, Syria and Mosul, Iraq.

In total, 27 UMST students and graduates are believed to have joined ISIS with at least six reported dead. Four or five of those are believed to have been from the British contingent according to The Times.

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