Scores of medical students from Tamil Nadu studying in war-hit Ukraine continue to seek help from the Indian government for their evacuation by narrating their ordeal of seeking shelter in underground bunkers in many parts of the country as the Russian troops intensify their assault.
As videos from students continue to pour in, as many as 17 students from the state stuck in Ukraine were reunited with their families on Sunday. While five students reached Mumbai in the first evacuation flight operated by the Union Government, the remaining 12 were part of the second flight and they landed in Chennai in the evening following a brief stayover at New Delhi.
The Tamil Nadu government said as many as 1,100 students from the state have established contact with it seeking help to be flown to their homes. The state government has set up two helplines – one in Chennai and another in Delhi – to help students contact the authorities by giving their details.
Four students who are studying in a university in south-eastern Ukraine made a fervent appeal to the authorities back home to rescue them. The girl students, most of them with tears in their eyes, said they have sought refuge in an underground bunker and all they could hear were sounds of explosions.
“We are here for the past two days. We are not able to move out of the bunker. We fear for our lives. For now, we feel we are safe but we continue to hear sounds of explosions. We don’t know how long this will continue. We appeal to our government to get us on the plane,” one of the girls pleaded.
Another girl who is doing her under graduation from the Zaporizhia State Medical University in south-eastern Ukraine said they are over 1,000 km away from the border from where Indian students are bundled into buses and taken to countries like Romania, Hungary and Poland. The students are then flown to New Delhi or Mumbai from these countries.
“Our sufferings increase each passing hour. We don’t know when will we be evacuated. Students from Tamil Nadu and other states in India are spread across Ukraine. We want to let the government know that we are here in the south-eastern part and we badly need help,” the girl said.
Watch latest videos by DH here: