CHENNAI: Parents of more than 5,000 students stranded in Ukraine are worried a lot after news trickled in that Russia had ordered an attack.
Devi Sesha, a medical student in the west-central Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa, spent most of the morning packing, keen to leave the country.
She has been answering frantic calls from home. “We are safe. But there is panic. We can hear the explosions from far away,” she said. The plight of several students living in hostels and private apartments in many cities of Ukraine, including capital Kyiv, is no different. Many kept checking their phones, watching Twitter feed of the Indian embassy to find out if they stood a chance of returning home.
Several parents had appealed to the Union government to evacuate Indian students before the crisis escalated into a war. They are afraid that it is too late as Ukraine has closed its airspace.
The Indian embassy, in its thi rd advisory, has told students in Kyiv to move to the nearest bomb shelters in underground metro stations,. and stay put. “We are in an apartment. There are several studen ts in the university hostel. It is difficult to fix a number but there are several hundreds of students in each city,” said Sesha.
SSushmita, a medical student, told her parents tha t her university had asked hostellers to stock up for at least 10 days. Many students like Sushmita were planning to return, a few also had got tickets on flights via the Middle East. Sushmita w as to board a flight home via Dubai on Saturday.
Poongodi, whose daughter is a fourth year medical student, said the Union government should have acted soon after trouble began almost a week ago. “What will we do now," she asked.
The Indian embassy in its advisory says that movement is difficult as Ukraine is under martial law. “The mission is identifying possible solutions to the situation,” it says. An earlier advisory had told students to “remain safe wherever you are”. The embassy has advised those travelling to “return to their respective cities temporarily, especially towards safer places along the western bordering countries. ”
