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Indian students rest on the floor at the train station after fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Zahony, Hungary March 3, 2022 (Reuters) Over 800 medical students stuck in their college hostels in Sumy, a city in north-eastern Ukraine, woke up to bombings on Saturday morning. Their relatives are worried as the students, in the absence of water supply, have been stepping out to collect ice for basic needs, which makes them vulnerable to attacks.
Dr Priyanka Aher, sister of medical student Mayuri Aher who is stuck in Sumy, told The Indian Express, “I called my sister this morning. It was 6 am in Ukraine when the bombings started. I could hear the explosions. Already there is no water supply for over 24 hours now and the bombings are scaring them even more. The students are forced to step out to collect ice which they boil and use for basic purposes. The Indian government keeps assuring that they will be evacuated soon, but the students are losing hope as there is no clarity when evacuation will take place.”
On Friday night, Aher’s sister Mayuri told The Indian Express over the phone: “We have given up all hope of being rescued. At times, I feel the Indian government is giving us false hope. The Indian embassy tells us they will rescue us but has not given us a time frame. I feel hopeless… After yesterday’s blast, water supply got discontinued in different parts of Sumy, including our college hostel. We boiled ice to get water, even for drinking,” Mayuri said.
She said the embassy has stopped taking their calls: “The health of some students with underlying conditions is getting affected.”
More than 800 medical students from Sumy University had on Thursday made a desperate appeal to the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi through a video, pleading to be rescued from the war zone.
Back in Mumbai, a group of students, who escaped from Kyiv and Kharkiv on March 1 and took a flight from Hungary, said they saw rockets flying over their heads and witnessed explosions from their apartment windows. They appealed to the government to rescue the thousands of others still stuck in eastern Ukraine.
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