VIJAYAWADA: After spending many distressing days in transit, three youngsters from Andhra Pradesh who were studying to be doctors in war-torn Ukraine reached Vijayawada on Thursday. After their evacuation from the Ukrainian-Hungarian border, the three — P Harathi from Vijayawada, Ramyasri from Guntur and Ajay from Nuzvid—arrived at the Vijayawada airport from Delhi, at 11.55 am on an IndiGo flight.
Harathi, a fourth-year MBBS student at Zaporizhzhia State Medical University, said: “After I heard explosions near the hostel, I was taken to a bunker, which was already occupied by hundreds of students.”
After spending four days in the bunker, she, along with other Indian students, left Kyiv for Lviv on a train on February 28. She hired a cab to Chop and proceeded towards the Hungarian border via Zahoni and Budapest.
She was supposed to leave Kyiv on February 24, but couldn’t as the airspace was closed after the international airport there was attacked by Russian forces. As she was already on her way to the airport, Harathi was taken to the Bogomolets hostel bunker.“Fortunately, the Embassy officials and locals there arranged food and other refreshments for my group when I was leaving Kyiv. On March 1, I boarded the repatriation flight to New Delhi and reached there on Wednesday evening,” Harathi said and appealed to the State government to ensure that all Telugu students be brought home at the earliest.
“The Indian Embassy staff and the authorities had made arrangements for our transportation and others. The university too helped in our escape.” Recalling her days in crisis-hit Ukraine, Harathi said despite the arrangements she faced water and food shortages as she shared a roof with several hundred students.
26 Kadapa students to land in State soon
Kadapa officials on Thursday said 26 students, who hail from the district, are expected to return home soon. Out of 35 students from Kadapa district who were pursuing MBBS in Ukraine universities, nine had already been brought back home