KOCHI: Emotions flashed on the face of Aswathy Shaji, 19, as she recalled her close encounter with death when Russia kept bombing Kyiv a week ago.
“It was freezing cold and shelling was heavy. Scarcity of food and attacks by racist Ukrainian soldiers made things worse. Hope faded with every passing hour. A group of Indian students whom I met in Lviv infused confidence in me. We managed to cross the border and reach the Indian embassy in Poland on February 28. Those four days in hell will haunt me forever,” said Aswathy, a first-year Aeronautical Engineering student at Kyiv National Aviation University in the Ukrainian capital, as her mother Baby embraced her at the Kochi airport on Thursday evening.
“It was around 5.30am (Ukraine time) when Russia started bombing the city on February 24. The hostel building was shaking. I felt as if my head got severed. The hostel authorities shifted us to the basement. We could recharge our mobile phones, but it was hard to bring food from outside,” she said.
Of the three Malayali students at the university, one had already left while the other went to the Hungarian border. African students preferred to stay back. So Aswathy had to start her return journey all alone.
‘We were treated like dogs at border’
“It was tough. I travelled for the next four days and could not sleep. A Malayali agent arranged a car for me to reach the Poland border which was 1,200 km away. I started at 1.30am on February 25 and reached Lviv city the next morning. Though I tried to cross the Shehyni-Medyka border, the Ukrainian army was giving preference to local people.
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A foreigner was allowed to go only after 10 Ukrainians crossed the border. There were lakhs waiting in queues,” she said. On February 27, Aswathy joined a group of Indian students who engaged a bus to reach the border town near another checkpost. From there, she walked 47km, wading through a sea of refugees.
“The nearest shelter was 9km away. So we decided to stand in the long queue in the open, in the biting cold. We struggled to hold on for the next 24 hours,” said Aswathy. On February 28 morning, Aswathy and her friends pleaded with the Ukrainian soldiers to allow them to cross the border. “We were shocked by their brutality. They beat up us with AK 47 rifles and threatened to shoot if we refused to obey their orders.
They opened the gates only after the Indian embassy intervened. When we finally crossed the border, I heaved a sigh of relief, but our ordeal was not over. After getting our passport stamped, we boarded a bus parked nearby. But the Ukrainian soldiers pulled us down and asked us to walk all the way to the next check post. We were treated like dogs,” she said.
Aswathy reached the Indian Embassy in Poland on February 28 evening where she was provided food and shelter. She boarded an IAF special flight from Rzeszow airport and reached New Delhi on Wednesday.
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