VISAKHAPATNAM: After five days of hiding in bunkers and an intense struggle to exit Ukraine amid below-freezing temperatures, six Telugu MBBS students of Kharkiv National Medical University finally landed at Delhi airport on Friday morning.Even as they were relieved to be back in their homeland, the medicos narrated their harrowing ordeal after Russia invaded its neighbour and attacked many Ukrainian cities. All six lived in a hostel at Oleksiivska.
Speaking to TNIE from the airport, Reddi Nomula Satya Sreeja from Visakhapatnam and Jitendra Kumar from Vizianagaram said they had decided to leave Ukraine soon after an explosion took place near their hostel bunker on February 28. On March 1, the duo took a cab to Kharkiv railway station and caught a train to Lviv. Despite living through a nightmare for over a week, both Sreeja and Jitendra are determined to go back to Ukraine and complete their degrees as soon as the situation there normalises.
“The cab trip to Kharkiv from the hostel was the most frightening experience I’ve had since there were explosions taking place all around the city. Soon after we entered the railway station there was a blast outside in which one person died,” Sreeja said.About how they were treated by Ukrainians during the crisis, she described them as good and friendly as she recalled an instance when a woman gave her a packet of cookies before they left for Kharkiv. She survived on the cookies during the 30-hour ‘never-ending’ journey to the Ukrainian-Polish border.
Her group dropped the idea of going to Hungary in favour of Poland due to more waiting time in Bucharest. “The conditions were not conducive even in Lviv since there was a movement of a lot of troops and firings.” They had food only after crossing the border where Indian officials had made arrangements for their stay, she said.
Jitendra said theirs was the last batch of students who escaped Kharkiv, where the situation only worsened later. “We stood in a queue under the sky at the Poland border for seven hours in nail-biting cold as the temperature was minus two degrees. Students who arrived after us were forced to wait for 17 hours.” They boarded a rescue flight to Delhi on Thursday midnight and reached the capital at 11 am. There were 250 Indian students on board, including 20 from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, he added.
“Only our willpower to survive and god’s grace helped us to safely reach the border from Kharkiv. There was no help from the Indian Embassy in Kyiv,” he said, adding that geographical guidance from seniors proved much help to them in reaching the border with Poland. One of their seniors gave them 300 USD, they said, and added they spent Rs 75,000 of pooled money on cabs to reach the border.
Sreeja told TNIE that the university was planning to hold online classes after two weeks. “Even if the Indian government gives us a chance to study medicine here, we’d prefer to go back to Ukraine because the teaching there was very good and had more practical exposure.”
Along with Sreeja and Jitendra, Gorle Tarun, Lakshita, Gadde Brahmendra Chowdary and S Kalyan were also expected to board the 7.30 pm flight to Visakhapatnam. They were expected at Vizag at 9.45 pm.At Vizag airport, Arjun, Sreeja’s father, said his daughter had escaped the jaws of death. “Though I was aware of the issues between Ukraine and Russia before sending Sreeja there, I hadn’t anticipated that there will be a war,” he said as he keenly waited for Sreeja.
Students facing problems at border
Some Indian students are reportedly unable to get facilities at the Poland border. One of the students of a university in Ukraine, Risitha, said she has been facing troubles at the Indian Embassy there due to passport checking. Her parents are afraid about her health. Risitha’s father Satyanarayana told TNIE that at 6 pm she arrived at the Poland border, but had to take shelter at the Art of Living Centre, some 380 kms away from the border