Five months.

That’s how long a group of international students from Libya have been stranded in Canada with no money.

“No tuition fees for the school. No health insurance for the children, for the wives,” says Mohamed Khlell. “We have hungry children. We have families.”

Khlell was part of a group of around 30 students protesting outside the Libyan Embassy in downtown Ottawa on Wednesday. They represent over one thousand students across Canada, and another two thousand studying in the U.S.

They came here through a scholarship program sponsored by the Libyan government. Now they can’t afford to stay, yet many can’t even afford to go home. “A lot of people came here to the Libyan embassy just to ask for the tickets to go back to Libya. But they don’t have anything,” says fellow-protestor Tarek Abuzwaida.

For years, the Libyan scholarship program was funded by the state, but administered by the Ottawa-based Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE.) Last fall, the Libyan embassy terminated the contract to run the program in-house.

The students now fear on-going political instability between factions in Libya is keeping the money from getting through. They say the embassy has neither the expertise nor the confidence of the ministry to run the program. “(The) Central Libyan Bank, they do not trust the embassy,” says Khlell.

That has prompted the CBIE to step back in. They recently signed a contract with the Libyan government to resume administration of the program on an interim basis. “We really do want them to feel that the scholarship program is solidly and effectively administered, that is has the funds that they’re going to need,” explains CBIE President, Karen McBride.

But that is still contingent on Libya coming up with the funds. An embassy official would only say the money will come, eventually. “As an embassy we’re still working out with our government there and with the CBIE to fix this problem,” says Adel Issa, who identified himself as a media officer with the embassy.

When asked why the money stopped in the first place he could only shrug and say “Oh, it’s back home. Libya.”