More Ukraine returnees land in Amritsar district

Amritsar, March 7

After his return from Ukraine, Saksham Sharma, a first-year MBBS student at National Medical College, Kharkiv, thanked KPS Sandhu, an agent who admits students at Kharkiv’s Medical College, for using his links to arrange his journey back home.

He, along with five other students, including Amandeep Singh, Arpan Preet Kaur, Arpan Sharma, Harmanpreet Kaur and Akriti Sharma, landed at Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport on Monday.

Akriti said her tickets to fly back to India were booked, but the airport was destroyed in bombing. She broke down as she hugged her mother at the airport.

Each of them had to pay Rs 40,000 for a bus journey from Pesochin to the Romanian border. Earlier, they walked for nearly 35 km from Kharkiv to Pesochim after they were not allowed to board the train. For the next 72 hours, they did not get anything to eat.

After reuniting with family yesterday, Saumya Hasija, fifth-year MBBS student, is thankful to the Almighty for a safe return back home. She said they would remain under the metro’s basement and move out only for restricted time to buy eatables. It used to be agonising shopping to stand in long queues and eventually they got a small quantity of eatables, but that too, at exorbitant rates. Now, she is concerned for her future as only one year was left to finish her degree in medicine.

Her father Naresh Hasija, a businessman, sounds equally concerned about the academic future of students. —