Hundreds of Indian students stranded in a university located in Sumy, a city in north-eastern Ukraine, said they have been asked by the Indian embassy to stay at the university hostels and wait for evacuation. Stuck amid shelling and gunfire, a group of them told NDTV through a video call that 700 to 900 Indian students are waiting cluelessly to be rescued from Sumy State University, located close to the Russian border.
"We are not allowed to step out. Supermarkets are out of stock. ATMs have run out of cash. I don't know how long we will be able to survive like this," one of them said. The owner of a local pharmaceutical company has been supplying them basic groceries for sustenance, they said.
"Before the situation becomes the same as in Kharkiv and Kyiv, please evacuate us by any means possible. We are 40 Kilometers away from Russia so the situation can become much worse here," the students appealed to the government. Capital Kyiv and Kharkiv have both witnessed constant shelling and bombing recently. Horrific videos from the two major cities show large scale devastation.
The students are hesitant to step out as civilians are roaming around with guns in the streets. "They have orders to shoot if they suspect someone," one of the students told NDTV. They have access to food for the time being. However, they said the local Mayor has informed them that more troops are pouring into Sumy.
Some students have taken the risk to venture out alone against advice. "One of our friends left saying our lives are in our own hands now. We asked him not to go but he left. He called us later to tell us he has reached the Poland border safely," they said.
Sumy is a three-hour train ride away from Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv where Russian forces have reportedly targeted civilian and administrative buildings as well. An Indian student was killed yesterday in Kharkiv while waiting outside a grocery store. 21-year-old Naveen Shekharappa, a final year medical student from Karnataka's Haveri, died when Russian soldiers blew up a government building on Tuesday.
Students from other countries are also stranded at the university. "They have arranged their own buses and said they can't trust their embassies anymore," one of the students said. On being asked why they are not boarding those buses and moving to safety, they said they have been advised by the Indian embassy to stay put and not move out. "We are just following our embassy's advice," they said.
The four students NDTV spoke to, two are from Gujarat, one from Assam and another from Haryana.
India today sent out an urgent appeal to all its nationals in Kharkiv to leave immediately for their safety, as Russian action intensified in Ukraine's second-largest city. In back-to-back tweets in all caps, the Indian Embassy -- which had to stop operations in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv yesterday -- said Indians should reach Pesochin, Babaye or Bezlyudovka latest by 6 pm local time (9.30 pm IST), on foot if need be.
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