Tension mounts for Indian students in Eastern Ukraine

The news of a fellow Indian dying in a shelling in Kharkiv spread rapidly among hundreds of students glued to their phone screens and sheltering in bunkers in cities on the eastern border of the country that are witness to fierce fighting between Russian and Ukrainian militaries. They are battling the cold and severe food shortage on the one hand, and on the other, they fear being hit by a missile or a bomb if they attempt to escape.

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“Increasingly, there are reports of students going missing. These messages are circulating on WhatsApp groups. These are missing reports of those who stepped out to either go to the railway station or to a local shop,” says Dona Sunil, a student of Kharkiv National Medical University.

So far, bombings, rocket attacks and heavily armed soldiers on the streets have kept them confined within their hostels. On Tuesday, a rocket strike hit a large administrative building in the main square of Kharkiv and the impact was so loud that it could be heard in Dona’s hostel. Seven people died in that attack and many were injured. The same morning, 21-year-old Naveen Shekharappa, died in the shelling, according to the Ministry of External Affairs.

Twenty-year-old Laxmi Kurup Aparna, who has now spent six days in a bunker in the same hostel says they have nearly run out of food, and despite the intense fighting in the city “we are left with no option but to try to flee, else we will die without food and water.”

She says on Monday night they had “one serving spoon of rice” that had to be split between two people and that was their only meal in the entire day. “Today, we don’t know whether we will get any food at all.”

Students feel they have been left to fend for themselves.

“We are at our own risk. No one has reached out to us from the Embassy. There is only a Facebook page that we follow for all the updates,” says Ms. Aparna.

In Sumy, Dushyant Siraw broke down after he read about Naveen’s passing on his WhatsApp, “We heard he had not had water for several days and was standing in a queue outside a grocery store when the attack happened. Someone please save us,” he appealed. Dushyant’s claims about the circumstances in which Naveen died could not be independently verified.

Those who have been lucky to escape also struggle with information on how to reach the specific check posts on the border with countries like Hungary, Romania, Moldova and Poland where local Indian embassies have stationed their teams.

Tushar Arya who boarded a train from Kharkiv on Monday was still on a train 24 hours later and was not sure how long it would take him to reach the destination or where the train was heading.

“We may go to Lviv as different countries are accessible from there.” When asked if he knew which border check-post to go to so as to access help from officials of Indian embassies he said, “We will see what transport is available and what is the most convenient mode to reach the nearest check-point.”

He was relieved however that he was out of Kharkiv,” After crossing towns like Kyiv our train is now passing through the countryside and there is no military action here. We are much safer now.”