“We are served a small plate of food at the table for six students. It is not sufficient for even one student. If we survive Russian bombing then starvation will kill us,” Deepanshu Gautam, a 3rd-year MBBS student hiding in Kyiv, the capital city of Ukraine, said while begging for evacuation. Thousands of Indians are reportedly stranded in Ukraine which was bombed by Russia on Thursday.
Gautam, whose family resides in Chandini Chowk in New Delhi, choked and cried while speaking to Outlook over the phone from an indoor basketball stadium of a school where he has taken shelter along with three hundred other students.
“Yesterday, we were served a small plate of rice with very little quantity of Dal Makhani as if it was just sprinkled over the rice plate. Students have been divided into a group of six and each group gets a similar plate to eat,” he said adding that whatever food students had brought from home have finished now.
“Sir, I am begging for my life, sir. Please tell the Indian government to get us evacuated from here as soon as they can. We can hear the sounds of the bomb explosions. We are extremely terrified sir,” Gautam told Outlook on a WhatsApp call with his other friends heard in the backdrop pleading for the same. He said that 400 meters away from his building explosions were happening.
"The only relief is that I have been told that since we are close to the embassy, this area will not be bombed," he said adding that all the students have been strictly advised not to venture out else they might be shot at.
The majority of these students are from other parts of the city and colleges such as Ivano Frankvisk national medical university and Kharkiv Institute of Medicine and Biomedical Science. They had arrived in Kyiv on February 24 to take their flights to Delhi. However, before they could reach the airport, Russia announced its military operation against Ukraine and the country’s airspace were shut down for civilian operations. They were left with no option but to look for a shelter to save their lives.
“On February 24, we had a flight to India so we came here in the morning from Ivano Frankvisk, a city about 550 km away from Kyiv in Western Ukraine. When we came out of the station, we saw Ukrainian army with heavy assault rifles and guns all around,” Another 2nd-year year MBBS student, staying with Gautam, said.
“They told us that martial law has been imposed in the country as the war has begun. We tried to go back to our city but by the time all train services were suspended,” he added.
Luckily, they got an online paid taxi service that was still available and somehow reached Indian Embassy in Kyiv. “We saw a lot of other students had already gathered here,” he said.
Students said that the embassy officials are kind enough to arrange accommodation and food for them but the quantity is so insufficient that they cannot satisfy their hunger and feel like starving.
“I don’t want to blame the embassy officials as we know that we are stuck in a war zone. They are nice and helpful. They are telling us that they are trying to get us evacuated but there is no certain date given to us and everything is on a verbal assurance,” Gautam said.
Asked why he hadn’t left the country early he said that his college insisted to pursue offline classes and didn’t allow students to leave. Another student, who has come from Kharkiv, a city in the North-Eastern part of the country, blamed Indian Embassy for not issuing a proper advisory to students on time.
“The initial advisory that was released from the Indian Embassy on February 15 asked the students that those who wanted to go could leave the country. It was only on February 22 that it asked all the students to evacuate immediately. The very next day we got our tickets booked and planned to leave but it was too late then,” he said.
Students say that they have been asked to use electricity as minimum as possible so they switch off the lights at night and live in dark. "We charge our mobile phones for somehow,” another student said.
They don't exactly don’t know how many of them in total are stuck in such locations in Kyiv, however, the numbers could be in thousands.
The Ministry of External Affairs is operating special flights from the capital cities of the neighbouring countries of Ukraine such as Bucharest in Romani and Budapest in Hungry from February 26. Though the MEA has made it clear that students will not be charged any money for evacuation yet many students say that they have no clarity on it.
“But the most important thing for us is to reach the border and make it to the neighbouring countries first,” a student said.
