Amid severe cold, we travelled in a train standing for almost 17 hours to the Poland border and crossed over on foot, said Pavan Kumar from Moodbidri who returned from Ukraine on March 4.
Indian students stranded in Ukraine. (Photo | PTI)
Mangaluru :
Sheikh Mohammad Thaha, a medical student from Mangaluru, is yet to get out of war-hit Ukraine. Thaha had been staying in a shelter just 10 km away from Kharkiv. Thaha said he spent more than a week in a bunker.
“We are near Poltava, which is 130 km away from Kharkiv, right now and the Indian embassy is expected to send buses to transport the remaining students. We could hear heavy shelling in Kharkiv as it is just 10 km away from the place we were staying.”
Meanwhile, Pavan Kumar from Moodbidri returned from Ukraine on Friday. Pavan said , “We did not have enough food and basic facilities. Amid severe cold, we travelled in a train standing for almost 17 hours to the Poland border and crossed over on foot. We had our final examination on May 22, and, since we did not know the severity of the war, we could not move out on time. There are still over 600 students stranded in Ukraine,” he said.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Karnataka / by Divya Cutinho / Express News Service / March 06th, 2022
Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi receives Indian nationals, who have been safely evacuated from Ukraine, as a part of ‘Operation Ganga’, at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi. | Photo Credit: PTI
1,200 walk 15 km out of city after embassy advisory; 60 bused out after 18 hour wait
Following the government’s “urgent advisory” asking all Indian nationals to leave Kharkiv and reach towns on its outskirts, hundreds of students, who braved bombs to cover a 10-15km of journey on foot, were on Thursday unaware of what they were expected to do next, or if there was a plan to evacuate them.
“We have been told to wait for embassy officials who may come tonight, but we are not sure if that will happen,” said Mohammed Thaha Sheikh, a student of Kharkiv National Medical University, from an abandoned hotel in Pisochyn, a western suburb of Kharkiv.
On Thursday, the Indian Embassy in Kyiv issued an advisory asking all Indian nationals in Kharkiv to leave the city “immediately” and asked them to proceed to Pisochyn, Babaye and Bezlyudovka on the west and south of Kharkiv. Everyone was told to reach these towns by 6 p.m. local time
At the time the advisory was issued, Mr. Sheikh said he was at the Kharkiv train station amidst “intense shelling”. While some girls were allowed to board a train, hundreds of other Indian students were not allowed to do so, he said. “Five trains crossed us but we were not allowed to board them. The ticket collector was allowing only Ukrainian women and children. I have heard there was also violence and some students were thrown off a train,” said Mr. Sheikh.
As the 6 p.m. deadline was approaching, he along with 1,200 others decided to proceed to Pisochyn. They covered a distance of 12 kms in three hours in relative peace once they hit the highway. But before that there were Ukrainian military men and tanks enroute and they were told to “run fast” and were also provided shelter for “10-15 minutes” by Ukrainian soldiers. Once they reached Pisochyn, they found an abandoned hotel.
“They were not expecting us there and there were only two-three staff. They assigned us two buildings, but there is no food here,” said Mr. Sheikh.
18 hours later, the students were still waiting to hear from the embassy on the next course of action.
Later in the evening, their student co-ordinator (or agent) started arranging buses and 60 students left in two buses to the western border.
Russia on Thursday said it was considering providing a humanitarian corridor so that Indian students in cities in eastern Ukraine such as Kharkiv and Sumy could be evacuated through Russian territory. For those who manage to escape the war zones, the journey back to India is a long one.
At a shelter in Bercini in Romania, Tanya Shekhar has been waiting for nearly four days for news from the local Indian embassy on their transportation to the city airport. She is part of a group of 47 students “We spent 48 hours at the border check-post standing in the open in sub-zero temperatures and managed to cross the border. But there was no embassy official in sight.
We have been at a shelter arranged by the Romanian government since February 28. Though we have been mailing the embassy and calling their helpline to know about our transportation, we only heard back from them today. We have been told there will be a bus today,” said Ms. Shekhar.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by Jagriti Chandra / New Delhi – March 03rd, 2022
