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Students stuck in Sumy running out of food, hope
Say If not bombs or bullets, they will die of hunger, urged Indian government to evacuate them at the earliest
Ludhiana: Students from Punjab stuck in Sumy near the Russian border are running out of food, water and hope. “If not bombs or bullets, we will die of hunger,” says Ludhiana-based medical student Mansi Kondal, as she shared the ordeal with her parents and told them how 700-plus students are holing up at a hostel of a medical college in Sumy. She said they may not be able to survive for long amid dipping temperature.
Prabhneet Kaur, also from Ludhiana, has urged the Indian government to evacuate them as time is running out. Besides, Vishal Sharma from Batala and Harpeet Kaur from Tarn Taran shared videos narrating the horrible time the students are going through in Sumy.
Mansi and Prabhneet, residents of Vishwakarma Nagar of Tajpur Road, are also stuck in the basement of the hostel for 10 days after the Russian attack on Ukraine. Both have been studying together since fifth grade. In 2018, they went to study MBBS at Sumi State University.
Mansi’s father Rajinder Singh is a teacher, while Prabhneet’s father Jasbir Singh is an ASI in Punjab Police. Their parents said the Indian government should talk to the Russian counterparts for safe evacuation of their children.
Back home, Congress leader Ashwani Sekhri, who met Vishal’s father Rajinder Sharma, said the Indian government should use its diplomatic ties with Russia and evacuate the children through a corridor. “The videos are disturbing. If the government takes credit for safely evacuating the students from Kharkiv and other places of Ukraine, then they cannot shrug off their duty of rescuing these students from Sumy,” he said.
Meanwhile, around 900 students holing up at a school in Pisochyn, a town located nearly 12km from Ukraine’s Kharkiv, have managed to reach Romania.
