GUNTUR: With the situation at Ukraine’s Kharkiv worsening, Indian students taking refuge in bunkers and metro stations there for the past six days, are leaving the city in panic. Several, including many from Andhra Pradesh, are leaving the city, making their own arrangements. Roja, a third-year medical student, who had been struggling without sufficient food and water at a metro station left the city as soon as the curfew was lifted.
“We are left with no choice but to leave on our own as we have no information whether we will be evacuated soon even as bombardments and shellings are increasing in the city. The cab fare has skyrocketed. We don’t have enough money to buy food and are starving for hours now,” Roja narrated her ordeal on Tuesday.
“We were pushed out of a train. The situation is similar for all Indian students. Somehow, we managed to board a train and there, too, we were treated very harshly. They asked us to get up from our seats and made us stand for hours. It is very embarrassing and humiliating for us. The locals are turning more hostile towards us.”
Alleging that there was no help from the Indian Embassy, she said: “At Lviv bus station, while the representatives of other countries were receiving their people and arranging transport for them to Chop city, not even a single person from the Indian Embassy was present there. We had to wait for five hours and spend all our money to get a bus.”
From Lviv, Roja and her group set out for the Hungary border on foot. Her father Venkateswara Rao said: “As the government has not taken any step to evacuate students in Kharkiv, we asked her to leave the city in any way possible. We are waiting with bated breaths for her to reach the Hungary border safely.”