Ukraine evacuation: Living under fear of shelling and bombs in Kharkiv
“We were sleeping when a deafening sound – an explosion – jolted us out of our beds. The whole building shook,” says 22-year-old Soumya Thomas, recalling the moment when she fled her college hostel in Kharkiv several days ago.
Russia has been shelling the Ukrainian city since Saturday, shearing tree branches, blowing out windows and even hitting schools and homes.
On that night, Soumya says she and her friends, students of the Kharkiv National Medical University, grabbed “whatever they could” and ran to the grocery store, and then the nearest bunker.
“It was dingy, dark and so cold – there was no drinking water, so we had to drink pipe water. Outside, explosions rang out from time to time. And when food ran out, we had to manage with just one meal a day.”
She says she wanted to leave immediately but stayed in the bunker in the hope that the “Indian government would act soon” and rescue them.
“But then my friend died. And I thought to myself: no one is coming to save us.”
Soumya’s friend, Naveen S Gyangoudar, was a student at the same medical college – he died on Tuesday when he left the bunker he’d been sheltering in to buy food.
Twelve hours and three missed trains later, Soumya says she is exhausted.
“It’s been six days since we have slept or eaten properly. There is the sound of explosion piercing our ears… my friend is wheezing and even the pharmacy hasn’t opened to give her medicine.”
She also worries that her supplies – eight boiled eggs, one loaf of bread, and two packs of biscuits – may not last her through the 15-hour journey ahead. That is, if she manages to get on a train – her group was barred from boarding thrice because, she alleges, they are not Ukrainians.
Thousands of Indian students are believed to be still stranded in Kharkiv as artillery shells strike the city.
India has ramped up evacuation efforts amid logistical hurdles to get its citizens home. Some 12,000 students have returned so far, India’s foreign secretary has said. The country’s foreign ministry has been advising Indians to make their way to border areas and cross over to board special flights from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. It has dispatched ministers to each of these countries to help with rescue efforts.
Indians account for a quarter, an estimated 20,000, of Ukraine’s 76,000 foreign students, the largest cohort, according to official data. Many of them are there to study medicine in the country’s state-run universities, which provide affordable quality education.
Many students are also stuck close to or at border crossings as they flee westward to escape advancing Russian troops.
Robin, who only goes by his first name, was also in Kharkiv until Tuesday but managed to board a train to “somewhere west” of the country by afternoon.
He says he managed to grab only his passport before fleeing the hostel – he had hoped to be better prepared, but when the attacks started, he says the shelling was so “furious” that there was “no time even to run”.
A third-year student at the medical college, he was sheltering in the same underground metro in Kharkiv as Naveen, the Indian student who died. He says they left around the same time.
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