Fatigued, war-weary students from Sumy head home to safety

New Delhi: Exhausted but elated, around 600 Indian students, who waged a tough battle for survival before being pulled out of war-battered Ukrainian city of Sumy, are now on way to Poland on a train from where they will be flown back home likely on Thursday.

Indian envoy to Ukraine Partha Satpathy flagged off the special train at Lviv railway station, with its war-weary passengers smiling broadly, flashing the victory sign and shouting 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'.

"Ambassador flags off special train with 600 Indian students from Sumy University at Lviv Railway Station. They will travel to Poland and are expected to board evacuation flights to India tomorrow. Be Safe Be Strong," the Indian embassy in Ukraine tweeted.

"Indian students from Sumy on board the special train organised with assistance of Ukranian authorities. Mission will continue to facilitate their movement westwards. Bringing back our students safely and securely will remain our priority," it said.

Lviv is a city in western Ukraine, around 70 km from the border with Poland.

India is set to have the last evacuation flight under 'Operation Ganga', the evacuation mission that was launched on February 26 in the wake of the war in Ukraine. More that 17,100 Indian nationals fleeing the war in Ukraine were evacuated from Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Moldova after they crossed over to these countries.

Tricolour in hand and chant of 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' on lips, these students who fought a doughty battle in bomb shelters and basements of their hostels in frigid weather, low on food, drinking water and other essential supplies, as Russian forces clobbered the city with rockets and heavy gunfire, had a reason to cheer after a seemingly endless wait for rescue.

Covering hundreds of miles across Ukraine, using multiple means of transport, they are being evacuated from the war-hit east European country after two weeks of beleagured existence when their lives were on the line.

The operation in Sumy began on Tuesday morning when the last big group of 600 Indians was evacuated from the city.

The Indian nationals were taken from Sumy in a convoy of 13 buses escorted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to Poltava, Anshad Ali, a student coordinator, said. It was a second attempt at evacuating them from Sumy, after the first came a cropper as a humanitarian corridor out of the city could not be created because the ceasefire announced by the Russians failed to take hold on Monday.

A Pakistani citizen was among 17 foreign nationals who were rescued by India from Sumy.

Official sources said besides the Pakistani woman, Asma Shafique, a Nepalese citizen, two Tunisian and 13 Bangladeshi nationals were rescued by India.