Not being allowed to board train from Kharkiv: Indian students

21-year-old Swathi, a medical graduate at a university in Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, stood hours together at a railway station to board a train to reach the border from where she hoped to be evacuated by officials from the Indian Government.

Swathi (name changed) was terrified after she heard the death of Naveen, another medical student who hailed from Karnataka, while he was in a grocery line in Kharkiv on Tuesday morning. “I am standing here for hours together. The train has come, and they are not allowing Indians to board the train. There is a huge crowd at the station, but none of us has so far been allowed to enter the train,” she said in a voice message.

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The medical graduate is among thousands of Indian students stranded in Ukraine due to the war. While 2,000 persons have been evacuated so far, the remaining are still stuck – some of them have sought refuge in bunkers while others are making their own arrangements to travel to the border where they can reach out to Indian authorities.

In a video sent by a group of students who hail from Madurai, Coimbatore, and Chennai, they said all they hear from inside their bunker is the sound of explosions.

“We were stuck inside a bunker for two days and we stepped out only today to buy essential supplies. Though the queue outside a store was long, we thought of taking a chance and stood in the line. Within minutes, we heard explosions and we ran to safety. Being here is just unsafe and we hope to be evacuated as early as possible,” one of the girls said.

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Another girl added that the situation was getting difficult for them as they are not even able to get sanitary napkins. “We are at least in a bunker but some of our friends are stuck inside metro stations where they do not have water and food,” she added.

However, Selvan, another medical student, told DH that he has been evacuated and is currently in Romania from where he is expected to be flown to India at the earliest.

“Luckily, our group was evacuated. We came to the border on our own and then Indian Embassy officials brought us to Romania. Hopefully, we will leave Romania on Wednesday,” he said. He added that he heard from his friends that Indian students are not being allowed to board trains and are attacked.

Another teary-eyed woman student sent a video in which she sought to know whether they came all the way to Ukraine to die. “We are all inside a bunker in Kharkiv. We have already run out of food and water. We have not been able to reach Indian authorities. We make a fervent appeal to the authorities to evacuate us. We came here to study, not to die,” the student, who did not wish to be named, said.

She also said universities did not allow Indian students to leave the premises till Russian forces began bombing Ukraine. “We just want to get out of Ukraine,” she added.

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