NEW DELHI: Caught in the war without basic essentials and supplies, Indian students at Sumy State University in Ukraine are melting ice to use for the purpose of drinking. Around 700 Indian students from the university are stuck in Sumy, about 350 km away from Kyiv, have not got permission to leave the city to reach Russia which is barely 48 km away.
The water crisis had forced many of them to walk for 2-4 km to scout for hand pumps in order to fetch water. “Till yesterday we were walking for 2-4 km to get water, but thankfully it snowed and now we are melting snow,” said Dummasiya Mariyah Munaf, a fifth-year MBBS student. Mariyah hails from Gujarat and says that her advocate mother is disturbed on learning her troubles.
Food is running out of stock but a pharmacy store run by an Indian is providing potatoes and other eatables which are being prepared in bulk to save for extraordinary circumstances. “Whenever there is an air-raid siren, we hunker into the bunkers. Many students have suffered asthma attacks... For the last nine days, many students also have hypertension and suffering from panic attacks,” says 23-year-old Tandel Smruti Natvarbhai, another fifth-year MBBS student from Navsari, Gujarat.
She adds that they are also arranging inhalers for asthma patients. Electricity is discontinued every night after air raids and during the day as well because of which they are also not able to charge their phones properly, she says. My father is continuously going to Gandhinagar to meet officials for evacuation.’’
Several videos of students are already doing the rounds on the social media showing the state of panic due to the constant sound of gunfire and air sirens. Many students say that no one from the Indian embassy has contacted them so far. “Whenever we call them either the line is busy or the phone gets disconnected,” adds Shruti Tyagi, a third-year MBBS student from Panipat, Haryana.
She says that the groups were informed that around 130 buses are standing on the Ukraine-Russia border for evacuation but there is no response neither from the Indian government nor Ukrainian officials. “We have packed our bags and are waiting to go now but someone should at least convey. Even the contractors are trying their best but they cannot do much,” Shruti adds, as she collected her thoughts to give updates of the group stuck in a hostile zone.
