Indian students lament as food, water stock depletes amid Russia-Ukraine war

Some students have started putting out videos on social media to attract the Indian embassy’s attention towards them and their plight. 

One of them, Sakshi Sudhakar, who is a fourth-year medical student, recently took to Instagram to let the authorities know that she is stuck in Mykolaiv with 300 other students. 

“The attack has been going on for three days and there is limited food and water resources. We need to get out of this place, but there are no means of transportation to reach the borders,” said Sakshi, who hails from Karnataka’s Bejai.

“It is easy for people to say that we could have left early, but we had our reasons and there is nothing we could do about it. It is too late now and we request the embassy to take us to the border. The situation is horrible. We are staying in bunkers that are not comfortable. Washrooms are an issue and there is limited food and water supply. Please help us out,” she said. 

Students who have managed to safely return from Ukraine have also described how depleting food stocks and long queues for water are adding to the trauma of stranded Indian students.

Payal Panwar, a final year medical student who returned to her Kotdwar home in Uttarakhand, said the stranded students need help of the Indian government and the Indian embassy people more while they are still inside Ukraine rather than when they have moved out of the war-torn country.

“The problems end when you cross the borders but while you are inside Ukraine it is really difficult with food supplies running out and no cash in ATMs. Stranded students need the help of Indian authorities while they are still inside Ukrainian borders,” said Payal, who studies in Ivano-Frankivsk city in western Ukraine.

Recounting her ordeal, she said around 60-70 Indian students had to book a bus and also walk a distance of 8-10 km in freezing cold to reach the Romanian border to get out of Ukraine.

Many ATMs could not dispense cash and long queues of men and women waiting for their turn for food supplies were seen at several points, she said.

Though happy and relieved to be reunited with her parents, Payal and her parents are worried about her brother who was still stuck in Kharkiv.

An Indian student who managed to reach the Kyiv train station said Ukrainian guards were not allowing students to board trains and also beating up people and made a fervent appeal to the Indian embassy to evacuate them as soon as possible.

As Indian and Ukrainian authorities on Monday described the situation as “complex” and “very difficult” in terms of evacuation of people, the students, joined by their parents, appealed to the Indian government to expedite efforts to evacuate them.

Meanwhile, the Indian embassy in Ukraine on Tuesday advised its nationals to leave the capital city Kyiv “urgently today” amid the deteriorating security situation.