THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/KOCHI: After kindling their hopes twice, the day finally offered disappointment for around 700 Indian students in the Ukrainian city of Sumy as the plan to evacuate them from the war zone on Monday had to be put off at the last minute.
The students of Sumy State University were ready right from the break of dawn, with high hopes that their 12-day ordeal was finally coming to an end.
They lined up at the lobby of the hostel with backpacks after the Indian embassy alerted them about the possibility of an early morning evacuation.
But by around 8 am local time, they were asked to stay put as a humanitarian corridor for their evacuation could not be set up.
“With our hopes dashed, we again settled down only to know a few hours later that a ceasefire has been declared in four cities including Sumy. Soon, we received a message from our coordinator that an evacuation could happen on Monday itself,” Krishnanand V, a fourth-year medical student told TNIE from Sumy.
Within a few hours, four buses entered the hostel campus. It was decided that girl students would board first as more buses were on the way to ferry all the students.
According to the students, some had even boarded the buses, only to be told that the evacuation has once again been put on hold.
“We were relieved as the embassy had informed us about evacuation. We had packed our belongings and were waiting in front of the hostel. The embassy brought four buses and girls had boarded the bus. When they were about to start, there was a huge explosion near the hostel. Subsequently, the evacuation team deployed by the embassy got information that the ceasefire has been violated and it was not safe to transport the students. So we returned to the hostels,” said Abhinav Santhosh, a sixth-semester medical student from Chalakudy.
“The plan was to take the students to Poltava, a relatively safer city some 175km south of Sumy and from there, finalise a route to the western borders,” said an official of the Indian embassy. The official added that despite the ceasefire, reports of fresh blasts on the planned evacuation route prompted the Indian embassy to put off the evacuation for the time being.
However, the students who returned to the rooms were shocked to see all their belongings and food stocks stolen.
“The situation has grown from bad to worse. When we returned to the hostel, we found our rooms open and our belongings, including the buckets used to store water, were missing. The cleaning staff had taken everything and even the food stocks were stolen. All of us are depressed and don’t know what to do,” Abhinav said.
Headed to Delhi
The last batch of Indian students from Kharkiv managed to cross Romanian border on Monday and will soon head to Delhi.