BHUBANESWAR: Contrary to the State government's claims of evacuating all Odisha students from active war zones of Ukraine, five more Odias are struggling without food and water to survive in the northeastern town of Sumy, which is under heavy bombardment and fighting.
Smruti Ranjan Nayak, Gouri Shankar Parida, Tapan Kumar Bugudai, Biswajit Das, and Suman Mahanta are five students who were awaiting evacuation from Sumy along with the other Indian students by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Saturday. However, their hopes were dashed after the Russian forces intensified airstrikes and bombardments on the day.
"We are told that the evacuation will now happen on Monday or Tuesday depending on the situation," said Smruti, who belongs to Keonjhar. Gouri, Tapan, and Biswajit belong to Balasore and Suman hails from Bhubaneswar but his parents are based in Kolkata now.
While Smruti, Tapan, Biswajit, and Suman are students of Sumy State Medical University, Gouri studies at Dnipro State Medical University but is stranded in Sumy. The five have taken shelter in the basements of hostel 3 of the Sumy University.
"All of us are safe now but for how long, we do not know. There are intense airstrikes since morning and no groceries left in supermarkets which have been looted by the Russian army. Many of us are falling sick and there is no food or medicines. We do not have any rice or dal left. All we have is some rawa which we are using to cook upma once in a day," said Smruti. But the biggest issue he said is the lack of water since the Russia-Ukraine war broke out.
"Electricity in Sumy was snapped on the day the war began and restored yesterday, but we are yet to get water supply despite our repeated appeals to the local authorities or MEA. While a water tanker was sent today, it was grossly inadequate for over 700 students who are here. Some of us could only collect water in one 5-litre jar each," said Smruti, who along with the others are fetching water from a lake nearby and heating it for consumption.
Another student Gouri said that there is no means to go out of Sumy now with the bridge and railway links from Sumy to Kharkiv, Kviv, and other places in Ukraine destroyed by the Russian forces. "We are told that several buses have been mobilised to the Russian border which is 50 to 60 km away for evacuation but there is no ground clearance from Ukrainian authorities yet," he said.
Frustrated, some Indian students threatened to walk to the Russian border on the day but were stopped by MEA and local volunteers. "The MEA and Indian Embassy spoke about Sumy for the first time only yesterday despite us constantly tweeting for help. As far as the Odisha government is concerned, I had sent them a list of at least 100 students from the State stranded across Ukraine including Sumy the day when it released helpline numbers. But it seems that they did not see beyond Kyiv and Kharkiv," said Smruti.
Meanwhile, State Resident Commissioner at New Delhi Ravi Kant said efforts are on to help the students.