Ukraine crisis: Living in constant fear of getting killed anytime, say medicos

Naina Mishra

Chandigarh, march 4

While several thousand students have made their way back home from the war-torn country, over 800 Indian medical students in the northeastern Ukraine city of Sumi are huddled in bunkers of their university for a week. Explosions close to the university have led to power outages and hindered access to roads and trains.

At 10.45 pm yesterday, after a bomb exploded, Faizal raised the alarm on the social media as he wrote: “We are scared right now. We are under an air strike attack near our hostel. Many students are crying and shouting. We need help, we want safety. Please help us.”

Faizal’s batchmate, 22-year-old Jiya from Zirakpur, who is stranded at Sumy State University along with hundreds of other students said, “We are deserted in the middle of the war zone and nobody knows our whereabouts. Although we hear sounds of bomb exploding frequently, yesterday night when a bomb exploded within a 5-km radius of the university, it felt like we were in the jaws of death.”

“We were on the seventh floor of the university building and immediately rushed to a bunker in the basement. It felt like the bomb will blow all of us as the yellow light flickered for two minutes. Many students fainted and others kept yelling. There was huge commotion and we had lost all hope. I cannot tell my parents what I saw last night. We are living in constant fear of getting killed anytime,” said the medical student.

“We want to go back home now and there is no way out of the university as all roads and railway tracks are broken. I hope the government does something to evacuate us soon,” she said.

Students board private bus for $500 each

Seeing no way out, many students who were stuck at Pisochyn, an urban settlement near Kharkiv, managed to hire a private bus for $500 per student. “Girl students and a few students who were sick had hired a private contractor from Pisochyn and headed towards Lviv. Some 600 students are still there at Pisochyn and are waiting for more buses to come,” said Varun Vatsayana, whose nephew is stuck at Pisochyn.