Stuck for days, soldiers firing in air: Students at Ukraine borders

New Delhi: "It snowed today for a while, we are running out of food and water and soldiers here are firing in the air at continuous intervals. We've been stuck here for more than a day now and no Embassy official is responding," said Jeetendra Gaurav, a student at Ternopil National Medical University on Sunday evening from the Ukraine-Romania border.

Gaurav and around 150 other students from his university reached the border checkpost on Saturday evening after they were told that Embassy officials will help them cross over to Romania. "We somehow booked buses but they dropped us off 10-15 kms from the border and we walked for over 1.5 hours in sub-zero temperatures but have been stuck here since," he said.

Meanwhile, a group of students –most from Gujarat –started their 10 km walk to the Romanian border point after spending over 16 hours on a train from Kyiv to Vinnytsia, following which they managed to book a car that dropped off a few kilometres from the border. Slightly out of breath, one of the students said in a voice note to Millennium Post, "We've just started walking, it's cold."

According to several students stuck at the Romanian border with Ukraine at the Purobne-Siret checkpost, where at least 1,000 Indian students are stranded on the road without shelter or food, Ukrainian soldiers and officials are not letting them cross over to Romania without Embassy officials first identifying them and then clearing them.

"No one from the Embassy listed numbers is responding to our calls... We stood with our heavy bags in front of the border for hours, but we couldn't cross it," said Vaishnavi, another student at Ternopil NMU, in a message to this newspaper at around 12:30 am on Sunday.

The students stuck there as of Sunday night said that once in a while Embassy officials do come in and help around 10-15 students, women first, cross into Romania. But most of the students stuck there are entirely confused about the procedure –not knowing how much longer they will have to wait in the open cold.

"There were a couple of cafes here where we are but yesterday there was some commotion there and now we are not being allowed in there also. We have some chips and water with us. Spent the night in the cold and did not sleep a wink. We are desperately looking for shelter and some of us have started falling sick too," Jeetendra said, adding that they had spoken to Embassy officials before departing for the border and had been told that all they need to do was find a way to reach there.

But as the group of 12 students from Kyiv continued their walk to the border on Sunday night not knowing what they will arrive at, another group of students from the Capital's Bogomolets National Medical University is stuck at the college hostel near Chokolivs'kyi Boulevard –practically living in their hostel basement's bomb shelter –surfacing periodically to spot the streets swarmed with armoured tanks and air raid sirens getting louder.

"The situation here is getting worse by the day. Last night, we heard bombings throughout the night, only interrupted by the sirens... We are extremely panicked about even thinking about making a dash to the border because we are hearing people are not being allowed to cross over," Souhardya Majumder said, adding that they are still somehow mulling to board one of the free trains to the border.

He said, "The train station is around 4 kms from where we are so even if we do not get cabs, we are thinking if we can walk it. But we are scared. But if we leave, we intend to leave in groups." Significantly, in the latest short advisory issued by the Indian Embassy in Ukraine, all students stranded in active war zones like Kyiv, Kharkiv and Sumy, have been asked to stay put once again and not attempt a dash to the borders.

The same situation is being faced by students stuck at the Poland border checkpost. In one video, Mansi Mangla, also a student at Ternopil NMU, said they reached the Ukraine-Poland border after a lot of difficulties, including walking for over 40 km. "When we reached the Polish border, we saw that the Russians and Polish were being allowed, but we were told to go back to the place where we study and nobody was ready to help," she said as one of her friends, Meghna Rathore asked, "What are we supposed to do now?"

In his last voice note to this reporter at 6:23 pm local time from Siret, on the edge of Ukraine and Romania, Jeetendra said, "We cannot say anything anymore right now. Because there was no one to help us, we are now helping each other. We are trying to evacuate ourselves and our friends on our own. Please send help... we are going at it without any official help now."