Indian students stranded in Ukraine continue to make arduous journeys to neighbouring countries for evacuation, and many have expressed anger with the Indian Embassy in Ukraine and the Union government for not coming to their aid when they needed it the most. Indian students have been travelling to the borders on foot in extreme cold conditions, lugging heavy bags, with little to no food and water, some of them facing violence and discrimination because of their race and nationality. Once they get to the western borders, they are then being flown home from surrounding Romania, Poland, Hungary.
A student who landed in New Delhi from Romania, who had to reach the country from Odessa, in an interview to NDTV questioned how being brought back from a safe country counts as evacuation. “You should have provided us with security in Ukraine. We were in a city that was so dangerous. Someone should have been with us from the embassy to guide us. Nothing was done. The students were just told that you take a bus and go," she told the channel.
Several students have made arduous journeys to whatever the nearest destination is or have been in bunkers in sub-zero temperatures, with limited water and food supply. According to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, 6,200 people were brought back to India between February 22 and March 3, with another 7,400 people expected to return on March 4 and 5.
Neelima, a student currently in Sumy in Eastern Ukraine, told TNM that she and roughly 400 others are in a hostel, and according to information they have received, over 700 students are in Sumy. According to her, embassy officials believed that a bulk of students were in Kharkiv and focussed their attention there and were unaware that these many students were in Sumy.
After a bomb blast very close to the university where the students were situated, those in the bunker where Neelima currently is lost both electricity and water. While electricity has returned, the students are worried over not having any water supply. She said that getting through the Russian border is not possible without a military escort.
A student named Mehtab, who was also stranded in Sumy, broke into tears while speaking to NDTV on March 3, saying they were in a helpless state, suffering in harsh conditions, and had received no response from the embassy despite calling them multiple times. “No one understands how difficult things are here, having to walk 15-20 km in extreme cold temperatures,” he said, and asked, “When will the Government of India take action — after we die?”
Students who were forced to stay back in Pisochyn, one of the three safe locations that the Indian embassy urged citizens stranded in Kharkiv to leave for urgently on March 2, are running out of resources, according to reports. Nineteen-year-old student Bavendrasinh Chauhan told Indian Express that he and his group, which comprises several hundred students, are losing hope and morale. He said that after the advisory issued on March 2 to reach a safe zone by any means within three hours, when students who were panicking and in tears called Indian authorities on the Operation Ganga helplines, they said they weren’t given any helpful information. Another student Harsh Valand told IE that many numbers shared by authorities weren’t working, and students hadn’t received any help or emotional support or any communication at all from the embassy authorities.
Another student, Divyanshu Singh, slammed the government’s gesture of handing out roses to evacuees on their return to India and asked, “What does this mean? What do we do with these flowers? What would our families do if we had been hurt?” He criticised the Indian government for failing to alert its citizens in time, leaving them to assess the risks and travel to the border checkpoints on their own.
Speaking to NDTV on landing at the airport in Delhi, Divyanshu said, “Once we crossed the border, we received help. But before that we received no help from the embassy. We had to do everything on our own. We formed groups on our own, got together and caught a very crowded train and left. Local residents helped us reach Lviv, they didn’t behave badly or anything. Some students were mistreated at the Poland border, but our government is to blame for that. If the Indian government had acted in time, we wouldn’t have had to suffer so much... There would be no need to distribute flowers and to show off like this if they had simply acted on time.”
Pragati, a student of Ternopil National Medical University, told NDTV that it was extremely difficult to cross the border on foot, and at sub-zero temperatures. “There were no shelters or food. We had to keep all our documents, laptops and books as we couldn’t leave them behind, and they’re all heavy.
“Once we reached the border, Ukrainian guards wouldn’t let us leave. The Embassy helped us (after crossing the border), but they were not there when we actually needed them. They only came after we crossed over the border into Poland. But we needed them before that, while crossing the border. We were beaten, a lot of our friends, the boys, were not allowed to cross the border. That was the time we really needed the embassy.”
Aditya, another student in the same university who returned to India from Poland, told India Today that he had to make it 200 km from where he was staying. When they managed to book a taxi, they were dropped off at a certain point because it couldn’t go ahead anymore. Left with two-three days worth of travel on foot, the students walked to the Sheyni border. At the border checkpoint, he told the channel that they were told that Indian nationals were not allowed, and female students were being shown guns. “When we crossed to the second checkpost, we saw students sitting there for the past four days, waiting for immigration. At the third checkpoint, the situation was the same. We were stuck for six hours there,” he said.
Students were suffering from hypothermia due to the cold, and they had to burn luggage for warmth. "People left their luggage behind. We opened their luggage to see what we could use. We burned our luggage to start a bonfire for warmth. If there was food, we ate and we kept moving,” he said.
Another student who made it out of Kharkiv spoke about walking around 12 km to reach a train station, being beaten by the police officers, and not being allowed onto the platform as they were Indians. He said the guards then asked for bribes and misbehaved with them.
Simranpreet, another student told NDTV that when India gave the advisory to students to leave Kharkhiv, they had to walk 15 km to the station. When they were 5 kilometres away from the station, another missile hit. “We all were terrified and started crying but somehow managed to reach the station. The Ukrainian guards threatened to shoot Indian students if they tried to get in. But we managed to get in somehow through another entry point. From Kharkiv to Lviv we were standing for 25 hours in the train. We needed help in Ukraine itself but were left to fend for ourselves in a war-zone,” he said.