Over 100 Malayali students in and around Kharkiv take refuge in subway trains as shelling and firing rage outside
Alappuzha: It is freezing cold outside, but more than 100 Malayalee students from various universities in and around Ukraine's Kharkiv city cannot afford to stay indoors. Every now and then the sound of shelling and firing is heard, and the students have taken shelter inside a metro train. A supermarket opened on Saturday morning and they collected some food and water and returned to the train. “It is minus 4 degrees Celsius here. We fear that extreme cold will make us sick, but there is no way to escape this trap,” said Lakshmi Priya, a fourth year MBBS student at VN Karazin Kharkiv National University.
“There is hardly any instruction from the embassy or any official for us. The agent who brought us here is telling us to stay where we are. The situation is bad and we cannot move here and there. Neighboring countries Romania and Hungary are 1,500-2,000 km apart and we find it difficult to reach there,” said Lakshmi Priya.
Vighna Nair, a native of Cherthala, said paucity of drinking water is an issue. "Thankfully, there is a facility to recharge our mobile phones at the railway station," she said. Jitina from Kayamkulam, who is staying in a bunker at the Kiev National Medical University, said she and others went to the hostel room at 8 a.m. when the sound of the explosion subsided.
“We went and collected the food kept in the hostel room and took a bath. The hostel authorities were constantly telling us to go to the bunker two floors down in case an alarm goes off. After an hour the alarm went off and we ran to the bunker. Soon we could hear the sound of bombings,” she said.
“By afternoon, the shelling and bombardment increased and they continued till evening. The embassy or other officials did not respond to our questions or respond to our phone calls,” Jitina said. Students studying close to the border areas are also facing a serious crisis.
“After being asked by the embassy to do so, they proceeded towards the Hungarian border. Many students, including those from North India, started walking on the border. It was 50-100 km away, but the border was not open for them and in extreme cold conditions they had to stay in the open all night. Many students suffered convulsions,” said Gokul GK, a native of Kalavoor, Alappuzha, who studies at Chernivtsi National University.s