E-Paper
Ukraine-Russia conflict: Panchkula students recall arduous journey to escape war
Left to manage the travel on their own, Panchkula students recall their ordeal of fleeing Ukraine which involved having to walk for kilometres amid the war and being stuck at the Romanian border for 48 hours
The sound of sirens did not let them sleep for days, they walked eight kilometres to reach the Romanian border and stood in a desperate crowd for two days and two nights before escaping the war in Ukraine.
As many as 27 such students are from Panchkula. Till date, 13 have returned and the evacuation process of others is under way.
Sharing her experience, 18-year-old medical student Manmeet Kaur said she stood for two days and two nights in chilly weather at the Romanian border to escape the war.
She is one of the hundreds of students who made their way back home on an Indian Air Force aircraft on Thursday.
Sharing her experience, she said, “Until February 24, everything was peaceful. But then bombs blasted in Kyiv and sirens rang in Vinnytsya. Every now and then, there would be sirens. We didn’t sleep for days. After a lot of pressure from the students, the university agreed for online classes. Neither the university nor embassy arranged anything for us. We were asked to hide in bunkers or first floor of hostels with lights off.”
She said the students arranged four buses and reached the border on the night of February 26. Hundreds of students were already waiting at the border, but they were not allowed to cross.
“They were allowing people from Ukraine to cross, but gave one or another reason to stop us. They also stopped us from using basic facilities like toilets, saying these are for people of Ukraine,” she recalled.
After standing in the crowd for two days and two nights amid minus temperature, Kaur finally managed to cross the border on February 28.
Recalling locals and NGOs offering help, Kaur said, “There Khalsa Aid and other NGOs provided us help. One night, we stayed in a shelter created in a boarding school and another day, locals arranged transport and dropped us at the airport.”
She boarded the IAF aircraft at 11am on Thursday and landed at Hindon Airbase in Ghaziabad at 11pm.
“The first thing I did was to tightly hug my mother, who was waiting at the airport.”
Karnika reached India on February 28. She only brought back a T-shirt, documents and her laptop. “Our university assured us that they, along with the Indian Embassy, will arrange buses, which will drop us at the border. But they ditched us. So, we ourselves booked buses, which dropped us around 8 km from the border of Romania,” she said.
She reached the border at night, but was not allowed to cross. And with the number of students increasing every hour, she recalled panic looming large and everyone jostling for space.
Safe home now, students hope they do not miss out on the academics.
