Indian students studying in Ukraine are keeping their fingers crossed on the prospects of their return to the country, with no end in sight to the ongoing war and following cancellation of flights due to closure of airspace by the Ukraine Government.
Meanwhile, their parents in India are all the more worried as satellite news channels bring in live visuals of the bombing of various cities in the war-torn nation. Though the children are in constant touch with their parents and informing them of their safety, the parents continue to be tense.
“Our university authorities have arranged food for us. We are staying in bunkers. Our institution (Kharkiv National Medical University) is located about 500 km from Kyiv, the capital city, which is targeted by Russia. There is no bombing in our area,” Reddy Nomula Satya Sreeja, who is doing her first year course in Medicine, told The Hindu over phone from her bunker on Friday.
Travel arrangements
“We are allowed to come out of the bunker and get into the hostel room, but we have to wrap ourselves with the Indian flag for safety. The university authorities are telling us that they are trying to take us to the western border. But we do not know whether the situation is conducive for travel or not. There are around 2,000 Indians, including about 700 students from the Telugu States,” says Ms. Sreeja.
“While in the bunker at night we did not hear the sounds of bombings. But when we came out of it this morning, we heard the sounds and were terrified,” she said.
She told us that the university authorities had asked her to keep all documents ready. They gave her an application and asked her to fill details about the border nation to which she could be sent by road for onward journey to India, said Ms. Sreeja’s father Arjun Rao, a businessman near Pendurthi on the outskirts of Visakhapatnam.
My daughter had joined the university in Ukraine in December 2021, Mr. Rao said, and wanted the Government of India to bring back all Indian students by arranging special flights.
Appeal to Vijaya Sai
Meanwhile, several parents met YSRCP Rajya Sabha member V. Vijaya Sai Reddy in the city and urged him to talk to the Embassy personnel and the Ministry of External Affairs for quick evacuation of the stranded students.
