BENGALURU: Seventeen of the 30 students from Karnataka, who have been safely evacuated from Ukraine, arrived at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru on Sunday to witness emotional scenes among much-relieved families, relatives and friends.
The arriving students were flown into Bengaluru under ‘Operation Ganga’, the mission to evacuate Indians from the war-torn country by flights by the Ministry of External Affairs through the Indian embassy in Ukraine.
While 12 students flew in from Mumbai at 8.40 am — to be welcomed by Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Coal & Mines Pralhad Joshi, state Revenue Minister R Ashoka and Nodal Officer and Commissioner of Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA), Manoj Rajan — five others flew in from New Delhi at 8.25 pm. Another 13 students were to be flown from New Delhi and expected to land at KIA at 1.25 am on Monday.
State opens facilitation centre at Delhi airport
According to the data available with KSDMA, 397 people from Karnataka were stranded in Ukraine with 129 among them from Bengaluru. With 30 having reached India, 367 are still in Ukraine. KSDMA said the air tickets from Mumbai and New Delhi to Bengaluru are being borne by the Karnataka Government.
The students who landed in New Delhi were accommodated in Karnataka Bhavan while waiting for their flights to Bengaluru. Arriving students reported that some of those still remaining behind in Ukraine were facing water and food scarcity as they are unable to move out of bomb shelters to access basic necessities. Manoj Rajan and his team are in constant touch with the Ministry of External Affairs to evacuate the remaining stranded students from Ukraine.
The state government has opened a facilitation centre at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport to help students from Karnataka who are arriving from Ukraine and to enable them to reach their respective homes. While the students who have arrived are relieved, it has been extremely difficult for them to expel the nightmarish experience and fear of being victims of a war they are witnessing first-hand for the first time at a young age.
If that was not enough, the students who have to break their education because of the February 24 invasion of Ukraine by Russia are now uncertain about their future course.
Mohammed Mannan, a resident of Channapatna who came to Bengaluru on Sunday evening on Vistara flight UK813 that landed at 8.25 pm with four other students, said “I was scared when I heard sounds of rockets and jets passing over us. I was in a safe zone, but still, my roommates and I lived in extreme fear when the missile attacks were launched.”
Keerthana Chinnappagowda from Hassan, who flew in on the same flight as Mannan, said, “I get nightmares about the situation I witnessed in Ukraine.”
A few students reached the Hungarian border and managed to fly to India. We did not have any difficulties for a couple of days but after that, every word of the attack and invasion horrified us.” Parents of Syeda Habeeba, who studies second-year MBBS and hails from Davanagere, said they were relieved to find their daughter’s name on the list of students arriving in India.
The students said while some of the universities had decided to resume classes online, they wondered how that would progress, considering that almost all these students are studying medicine, for which online classes would not be of much help. “We hope that peace returns to Ukraine and we can go back as soon as possible,” the students said.
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