Around 250 Indian students are living in a single bunker located below Kharkhiv Medical University premises in eastern Ukraine. (Faisal Kassim/Special arrangement)
The death of an Indian student from the National Medical University in Kharkiv has triggered more panic among the ones stuck in war-torn Ukraine and their parents.
For dozens of students huddled inside a dark basement of National Medical University in Ukraine’s war-hit Kharviv, fear and trauma are only increasing with each passing day. On a day when the tragic news of the killing of a fellow student from the university has trickled in, the group is fast losing hope.
“We may all die. We are at the far extreme of the country in the heart of the battle zone and don’t know how we can move out from here,” a distraught medical student Akriti Sharma, who hails from Amritsar in Punjab told the News18 over phone.
A young medical student from Karnataka, who was also studying in the university, lost his life in the shelling reportedly by the Russian forces. About 5000 students from India are stuck in Kharkiv alone, which is closest to the border with Russia and has seen heavy shelling after the war broke out. From hostel basement to underground metro stations, these students have taken shelter wherever they could. “Almost every hour we can hear the sirens go off and then the sound of the bombs. It’s nerve-wracking,” says another final year student Amritpal Singh, hailing from Sultanpur Lodhi in Punjab.
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From worries over depleting food stocks now to questions over their safety, the group of students who are holed up inside the underground metro stations across Kharkiv are wondering whether help with eventually reach them. “Don’t know how we are going to get out of here. Whatever little food we had packed up and rushed to these makeshift bunkers are fast depleting. We are rationing whatever is left but now, the biggest fear is whether we will be able to come out of here alive,” commented a traumatised Akriti.
These students, who have managed to stay in touch with their families through WhatsApp calls and text messages, have come to know about the death of the Indian student and ever since panic has set in. “The shells are pounding the town. We are several hundred kilometres away from the western border where the Indian embassy is evacuating students. How can we reach their border outposts with constant shelling?” said another student Prateek Singh, hailing from Punjab.
Even their parents back home are shell shocked after the death of the student from the college. “We feel helpless and none seem to be helping our kids,” lamented Amritpal Singh’s cousin.
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