‘We are expecting the worst’: Indian students remain stranded in Ukraine

The Russian military campaign in Ukraine has left hundreds of thousands people in the country homeless as they shelter in safe spaces, trying to shield themselves from incoming bombs.

The situation is precarious for all civilians in the warzone, but foreign nationals have to deal with both finding bunkers to stay safe while also trying to keep in touch with their loved ones at home.

An estimated 15,000 Indian nationals find themselves trapped amid the war in the country, many of whom are students that have been holed up in their college basements for the past four days.

Many Indian students are being taken to Ukraine's border with Romania, Hungary and Poland by buses, from where they are being flown home by Air India flights.

Ukrainian authorities have also imposed martial law across the country and the capital Kiev remains closed to commercial air traffic, leaving thousands of foreign nationals stranded.

On Tuesday, one Indian student was killed in the eastern city of Kharkiv as a result of heavy shelling by Russian forces.

TRT World spoke to almost a dozen students and Indian citizens who were either moving to bunkers or taking shelter at other safer places.

Bhawna, 22, who studies medicine in a university in Kropyvnytskyi, is finding it hard to keep her parents calm. “They panicked after seeing a lot of students making appeals on different social media platforms, and I don't know what to tell them,” she told TRT World.

Bhawna is from the Indian capital New Delhi, and studies in central Ukraine which was a target of strikes on Thursday night.

Since the bombardment she is constantly alert and ready to manoeuvre in case of an emergency.

According to 2020 data from the Government of India, there are around 18,000 Indian students studying in various universities in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government estimates that in 2019, there were 80,000 international students in the country; almost a quarter of them — 22.9 percent — are Indians.

“We are expecting the worst but we also feel positive that the Indian embassy is being quite helpful at the moment. They are taking up our emergency calls which is giving us hope,” Bhawna said.

Several cities in Ukraine are experiencing night curfews and everyone including Bhawna have been informed about bunkers/bomb shelters in case of an extreme situation.

“The bunkers are just 5-600 metres from my place and we have already stocked up necessary items,” she said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while declaring martial law, urged Ukrainians to stay home and not to panic.

“We were told to keep the lights of our rooms off during the night to prevent any possible attack,” Bhawna said.

The Indian Embassy on Thursday advised all Indian nationals in Ukraine to stay at home and to find the nearest bomb shelters if they hear air sirens. In advisories, it warned: “Please be aware of your surroundings, be safe, do not leave your homes unless necessary and carry documents with you at all times.”

Warzone limbo

While many students are optimistic about their safety, many in southern and eastern Ukraine want to be evacuated regardless. They are growing weary and feeling increasingly unsafe while barricading themselves in bomb shelters.

"I have been in a bunker along with 50 other people for the last three days," said Milcah Kandayaray, 25, a student in Odessa. "I had stocked up on food and essentials, but now it has finished."

But it’s not just incoming bombs that people have to fear.

"People are knocking doors to loot us," said Kandayaray referring to those taking advantage of a seemingly lawless situation.

For those parents whose children are in Ukraine, it has become a nightmare.

Every ten minutes, Ali Mohammad from Tangmarg, in Indian-administered Kashmir, contacts his son, Zaffer, who is studying at Odessa National Medical University in Ukraine. After he hangs up, he calls his classmates to cross check that his son isn’t lying about the situation just to allay his father’s fears.

“That way I assure myself about my son's safety. Because at this moment he also doesn’t want us to worry,” he said.

An estimated 180 to 200 students from Indian-administered Kashmir are currently living in Ukraine, most of them students of medicine. Indian citizens, including students, have made desperate appeals to the Indian government on social media to help execute their evacuation from the war-torn country.

With Ukraine closing its airspace, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in India claimed that it was sending teams “to the land borders in Hungary, Poland, Slovak Republic and Romania” to assist in the evacuation of Indian nationals stranded in the country.

Of the estimated 20,000 Indians in Ukraine, about 4,000 managed to leave the country over the last few weeks, India’s MEA said.

Ali initially went to Ukraine in 2019 to study medicine and his parents knew that it was his dream to study in a good college and they found Ukraine the perfect place to do that.

Medical colleges in Ukraine are valid in India and recognised by the World Health Organization. The reason why most students in Ukraine stayed in the country for so long was due to uncertain decisions from college authorities, who had not issued any statements on the closure of institutions.

“We would have gone to any extent to get our son back and no matter how much money it required. But his classes were still going on,” said Ali.

Amjad Navas, a 19-year-old from the southern coastal state of Kerala, who studies in Vinnytsia city, was packing while speaking to TRT World over the phone.

“Some of my friends have been moved to shelters and now we are also planning that. We got necessary stuff and have little cash with us, we cannot go to ATMs or move out from this place,” he said.

Navas said that the situation in his city was bad and they were being told to keep the doors and windows closed after some blasts took place. His friends who study closer to the border regions were either being evacuated or moved to bunkers.

“We really want the embassy to help us out, it is a difficult situation,” he appealed.

On February 15, amid growing Ukraine-Russia tension, the Indian embassy in Kiev issued an advisory that said in view of the “uncertainties” in Ukraine, Indian nationals in Ukraine, particularly students whose stay is not essential, “may consider leaving temporarily”.

"But our classes were going and universities, colleges were working. So we couldn't decide," said Navas.

According to different media reports, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has conveyed to the Ukrainian President about India’s concern regarding the safety of its citizens, especially students, and conveyed that "India attaches the highest priority to their safe exit and return to India."

The Indian embassy in another advisory has advised Indian nationals living closest to the border checkpoints to depart first in an organised manner in coordination with teams from MEA.

The government has asked Indian ambassadors in countries neighbouring Ukraine such as Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary to send teams from their missions to border areas with Ukraine to "facilitate the exit of Indians so that they can be evacuated to India."

As per different reports, more than 1,000 Indian students have reached back home from Ukraine. But hundreds of them still find it hard to reach the borders.

Sharun Suraj, a student who along with 200 others had reached Kyiv Volzana railway station said that students were in a bad condition and not being allowed to move from the place.

"We are freezing here in minus temperature since morning and have exhausted all our necessary stock, there is no one to evacuate us as we were being told," he said.