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We don’t know if we will see tomorrow: Students stuck in Ukraine
While the students have been doing everything possible to survive, the war has entered a phase which is even more unpredictable and dangerous and Naveen’s death has agonised them to unimaginable proportions
Clifford Ben Samuel, 21, a fourth-year aviation student from Chennai studying in Ukraine’s Kharkiv city, is a college mate of Naveen Shekharappa Gyandagoudar, the first Indian killed in the conflict-hit nation.
While the students have been doing everything possible to survive, the war has entered a phase which is even more unpredictable and dangerous and Naveen’s death has agonised them to unimaginable proportions. “We see missiles all the time now,” said Samuel.
He said that through Telegram and Twitter groups they got to know that Naveen was killed around the same time there was a massive attack in a place they call the Centre which resulted in several casualties. “Centre is less than 10 km from here. We got to know that Naveen was shot down when he was standing at a grocery store to pay his bill.”
Samuel left Chennai to study aviation and belongs to the same fourth year batch as Naveen but didn’t know him because the victim was studying medicine. Yet, it’s a collective sense of loss for the country and he is one amongst the student community which is currently helpless in a foreign war-torn land.
“We have lost one of our own,” said Samuel, speaking from Kharkiv over the phone. In four months, Samuel would have finished his course but now he is in a state of not knowing what would happen the very next moment. 24x7 we hear explosions. Our room is shaking constantly. I can’t sleep even for five minutes.”
Samuel and students from his university in Kharkiv are in bunkers now with no electricity, food and water.
Students in Ukraine, who spoke to HT, are traumatised. “I don’t know if I will live until tomorrow. It’s like I’m literally half dead,” said a student. The students have no one to share their plight with as their family and friends back home are equally sleepless and anxious. Some students in bunkers have been living on eating apples every day, some have run out of food and water. But the young students have been assuring their frightened parents in India that they have eaten well. Naveen had gone to the grocery store so that he and his friend could have a meal which they haven’t had in days.
Students blame the Indian embassy for not giving them clear instructions to leave and the universities which they say asked them to stay back for online classes from Monday, February 28. Russia invaded Ukraine on Friday, February 25.
“On Thursday, we asked the university but they told us to stay back for classes. Two days before the war, we called the India embassy and they gave us no information,” said a student. “They all pushed us to this situation. They betrayed us. We are being held back like hostages.”
Students also say they have been subject to racism. “One of our friends tried to catch a train though we told him not to. They kicked him out. Even in this situation Indian and black students are facing racism,” a student said.
After five days of war, there are only signs that it was escalating. Samuel and all the students’ only hope is for them to be evacuated at the earliest. “We left our apartments and went to metro stations and then we went to bunkers. We will do everything we can to survive,” says Samuel. “We have seen everything now in Ukraine. Covid-19 and a war.”
