"Now that we are here, it is being called evacuation," said the student
Flying people back from peaceful nations is not "evacuation", contended a busload of students who landed in India from Ukraine today under the government's Operation Ganga. Help was needed when they were in Ukraine, they told NDTV, recounting the conflicting advice on Indian embassy helplines, the long walks in the cold amid the fighting, waiting for days at the border without food or water and the battle to get across it. "We do not want free flights. We need help to reach the border and cross it," was the refrain.
"Now that we are here, it is being called evacuation," said one student who had to make her way back from Odessa, where the Ukrainian naval base was among the first to be attacked by Russian forces.
"I don't know whether everyone will agree with me, but tell me one thing. We are brought back on a flight from Romania, which is a safe country. So how can you call this evacuation? You should have provided us security in Ukraine. We were in a city that was so dangerous. Someone should have been with us from the embassy to guide us. Nothing was done. The students were just told that you take a bus and go," she said.
Asked about the helplines that have been set up, she said it only added to the confusion. "You ask everyone out here. They pick up the phone and say 10 different things to 10 different people. In the end, if you ask too many questions, they will say 'Sorry sir, we do not have more information on this'," she said.
"We don't want free flights," she said, then turned to the other students and asked, "Do you want free flights or help to reach the border. 'Reaching the border'," chorused several students, who were part of the 200-strong batch brought back on a flight from Romania today.
One student said they had to foot it to the border – a 10-hour walk and wait there for two days. There was curfew at night. All day there were explosions, she said.
"Coming to the border and crossing it were the actual problems. Not flying us here on planes," agreed another student. "(You are) Just giving yourself publicity for bringing us back on planes... That's not a great thing. The army should have landed the cargo flight there (in Ukraine) and bring the kids," he added, referring to the four Air Force carriers that flew back around 800 students today.
The government's advisory yesterday, asking them to leave Kharkiv immediately before a scaling up of the Russian operation, had worsened matters.
"Why at the last moment? When the situation became much worse? One of our colleagues had died and there was so much tension... we are requesting the government again and again -- we do not want free flights. Just help us reach the border and cross it," the student said.
The government has said they will operate 19 flights today which will evacuate 3,726 people. Eight of these flights will take off from Romania's Bucharest, two from Suceava, also in Romania, one from Slovakia's Kosice, five from Hungary's Budapest and three from Poland's Rzeszow.
After dispatching four ministers to the countries to coordinate the evacuation efforts, the government has also organised a group of ministers to welcome the students home – a gesture that apparently has not pleased many.
Earlier today, a student said gestures like distributing flowers are pointless when timely steps were not taken to rescue them from the conflict zone. Asked if they received help from the Indian embassy in Ukraine, he told NDTV, "We received help only after we crossed the border into Hungary. There was no help before that. Whatever we did, we did on our own".