For UC Berkeley sophomore Howaida Kamel, evacuating from Cairo on Tuesday with the rest of the UC community members in the area following days of mass anti-government protests and violence that shook the streets of her home was not an option.

It meant leaving behind both her family and the growing revolution she supports, though staying may put her status as a UC student in jeopardy.

“Leaving Egypt in the midst of all this, packing up my bags and leaving my family, I didn’t see it as an option,” Kamel said. “As someone from Cairo, how people have come together has been something incredible to witness, and I’ve never felt as proud of the Egyptian people as I’ve felt in the past week. This is history, and it’s being made right in front of my own eyes.”

Kamel’s decision to stay and the simultaneous removal of UC community members – including 19 students – Tuesday afternoon came after eight days of protests across Egypt as citizens of the nation called for the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.

Following a travel advisory for Egypt issued by the U.S. State Department, UC affiliates, including an archeological team from UCLA, were evacuated from Cairo Tuesday afternoon. According to Haydn Dick, executive director of the UCLA International Education Office, the removal is part of university policy governing UC study abroad programs.

“When we run study abroad programs, whenever there’s political unrest that’s a concern,” Dick said in an e-mail. “When the State Department upgraded to a travel warning over the weekend and started suggesting that Americans go home, it’s standard policy in the UC system that we will cancel a UC program and get students out of there.”

Kamel, a sophomore international student studying development studies at UC Berkeley who returned to Egypt in the fall to study abroad at the American University in Cairo, did not evacuate with the rest of the Education Abroad Program – making her status as a UC student unclear because staying means she has officially withdrawn from the university, which could also result in the cancellation of her F1 student visa, she said.

She added, however, that the decision was one she does not regret because she is able to watch and participate as her country stages a “people’s revolution.” On Tuesday morning, Kamel joined thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square, describing it as “an unforgettable moment in (her) life.”

“In terms of the solidarity and the camaraderie and the patriotism, you feel it when you’re walking in the streets, and it is something that is amazing to see,” she said. “This is a revolution of the people that took to the streets and got together on Facebook, on Twitter and decided they were going to do this. That’s what this revolution is about.”

According to Barira Rashid, a UC Berkeley junior social welfare major who was among the students evacuated Tuesday afternoon, “being torn from Egypt was extremely disheartening.”

Rashid said though she did not join in the protests because of program safety concerns, she spent days stuck in her apartment, located in the heart of Cairo, watching the daily protests from her seventh floor balcony.

“There were thousands and thousands of people – women in burqas and niqabs, children, young men, old grandpas, people from the lower class, people from the upper class – all standing there supporting each other and this cause they were willing to lay down their lives for,” she said. “The strength of these people was incredible.”

Jordan Bach-Lombardo of The Daily Californian contributed to this report.