Survival was at stake, covered 20 km on foot: Delhi student

Mukesh Ranjan

New Delhi, March 3

Nearly 2,000 MBBS students of Vinnytsia National Medical University have reached home after a horrifying experience. They had to undergo physical and mental torture for three days as they walked for around 20 km to reach Romania border where they witnessed a complete chaos.

Junaid Khan, a Delhi-based third-year student of the university, who landed here from Bucharest, told The Tribune that the Indian Embassy in Kyiv “behaved irresponsibly”.

Delayed action

Indian Embassy officials brushed aside tension, saying such conflicts took place in 2014 and 2019 too… Even Indian Govt’s advisory came very late. —Junaid Khan, Delhi native

Junaid said, “Before things started deteriorating, we kept persuading Indian Embassy officials to speak to the university to ensure online classes for us. They told us that nothing would happen as such conflicts took place in 2014 and 2019 too.” The Indian Government’s advisory came very late and that too was a reaction to their action, he said.

On February 25, the embassy put out a notice asking students to leave, but it was too late. “On February 26, there were no buses to travel to border areas. Our agents, who work as a bridge between us and the university, came to our rescue and managed buses.”

The 25 buses carrying 2,000 students left us around 20 km short of Romanian border. We walked for around six to eight hours. It was a complete chaos there. Troops fired in the air to control the raging crowd,” he said, adding that everyone was eager to cross over first. He said it took them nearly 24 hours to cross over to Romania.