India evacuates students from Ukraine

As violence intensified on the streets of eastern Ukranian town Lugansk, the central government made arrangements for the safe return of Indians, mostly medical students.

The Ministry of External Affairs has so far made arrangements for 1000 Indian nationals including the students pursuing medical courses at Lugansk State Medical University, to come back to Kiev in two batches of 500 each on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The first secretary from the Indian Embassy in Kiev has gone to Lugansk to look after the arrangements.

The rector of the university has been asked to inform the local administration on the en masse departure of Indian students so that adequate security arrangements can be made for them to reach the station safely.

There are approximately 2,500 Indian students studying medicine and engineering in Ukrainian universities, according to the Indian embassy website. There is also a small Indian business community in Kiev.

"Arrangements underway. Mission in cooperation with the Ukraine Government.. arranging for move of Indians students in Lugansk," said ministry of external affairs spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin in a tweet.

Even those Indian nationals and students, already holding railway tickets for later dates must travel on June 3-4 and not delay their departure from Lugansk to a later date as the situation may deteriorate further, the Indian Embassy in Kiev said in an advisory.

Seeds of the violence were sown in April following the Crimean Crisis, when pro-Russian separatists planned to declare independence. The move comes after another separatists group declared independence in another province named, Donetsk.

The separatists staged a referendum on separating from Ukraine on May 11, which Ukraine did not recognise and retaliated with military action.

On Monday, a top leader of the separatists group was killed in an Ukraine military aeroplane bombing, escalating the violence.