Kazakhstan Requests Egypt's Help In Finding Missing Students

ASTANA -- Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry has formally requested the help of authorities in Egypt to find six Kazakh students believed to be missing in Cairo.

The ministry said on July 25 that the six students were studying Arabic and lived in one apartment in the Egyptian capital.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Anuar Zhainaqov said the students stopped communicating with their families on July 20.

Zhainaqov said the students were not followers of extremist Islamist ideology.

Kazakhstan says hundreds of its citizens have joined extremist groups in Syria and Iraq in the past several years.