E-Paper
Ludhiana student recalls six-day ordeal after fleeing Ukraine
I am still finding it hard to believe that I am alive, says the 26-year-old medical student from Ludhiana while recalling his escape from a conflict zone in the war-torn Ukraine
Hitchhiking and walking for kilometres, waiting in long queues at the border without any food or water, and even facing Ukrainian army’s batons, Ravinder Singh, a medical student from Punjab, finally reached Poland after six days. “I am still finding it hard to believe that I am alive,” says the 26-year-old, while recalling his escape from a conflict zone in the war-torn Ukraine.
Belonging to Bharthala village in Ludhiana, Ravinder is a student of National Pirogov Memorial Medical University in Vinnytsia town of Ukraine. It was six days ago that he woke up to the shrill sound of sirens in the wee hours. “When the siren rang for the fourth time around 6.30 am, I and my friend realised it was time to rush out of the hostel. Then we heard a bomb. The sound came from kilometres away but was deafening. We immediately hired a taxi to the Rava Ruska border, some 430 kilometres from there,” says Ravinder.
However, the taxi left them midway at night in the biting cold as the driver got scared. “We walked some distance and took lifts to finally reach the border, but they turned us back saying only vehicles were allowed to cross the land border. Since we were on foot, we could not cross through,” he recalls.
Ravinder then walked 10 kilometres to another land border crossing with Poland, where there was a long queue. “The next four days were spent at the border without food and water. There was jostling, long queues and Ukranian army resorted to canecharge to control the maddening rush of people seeking to cross over to Poland. Many turned back from there after being beaten up,” he says.
A friend in Poland, who belongs to Jalandhar, came to their rescue and took them away in his car just as they crossed the border. “It will take me at least 10 days to recoup. We have suffered loss of education and lakhs of money, but I am relieved to have survived,” he says.
Back home in Ludhiana, Ravinder’s father Ranjit Singh was teary eyed as he spoke about his son. “He told me there was no water. He drank leftover water from plastic bottles littered at the border.There was nothing to eat at all. After crossing over, Khalsa Aid had organised a ‘langar’ in Poland, where he finally got food after four days,” says Singh.
