As Air India flight evacuates Indians, many Indian students from regions across Ukraine are desperately hunting for ways to get to the nearest border, but transportation is the biggest difficulty they confront.
According to a student at Ivano Frankivsk National Medical University, "We're at a loss on what to do because the Embassy just informed us that transit channels are being set up on the borders of Romania, Hungary, and Poland. However, they did not tell us how to get there. Some of my college friends went to the border on their own, but the border forces of the respective countries sent them back."
"We don't know what to do or what not to do since the Embassy is not telling us anything. There is evacuation going on, but just in words and on television. We are still confused," he said while adding that students from the University have arranged for five buses to travel to the border area near Romania as the vehicles arranged by the Indian Embassy and University authorities that were supposed to come today around 9 AM will now arrive on Sunday.
Some students are also planning to depart by taxis nearby borders rather than waiting for the buses on Sunday and they are reportedly paying around 400 UAH (around Rs. 1000) as fares for the same.
Another student from Lviv, Aadarsh Parashar, has luckily returned to India, but his group mates are stuck there. "The Ukrainian military had instructed my group mates to vacate the area, therefore they went out to the Polish Embassy for assistance in the evacuation. They all left last night and had reached the border, but now, after the government of India's recent advisory, they are being urged to return to Lviv. It was tough for them to get there in the first place, and now being asked to return has left them stranded," Parashar said.
He went on to say, "It's already -4 degrees outside, and they have minimal food and money. How are they going to come back?"
Many students in Odessa also claim that they are staying put in their flats and hostels as no communication has been made to them yet. Students in Dnipro told the Free Press Journal that they will have to arrange for taxis by themselves to leave but are unsure about travelling due to security concerns.
The quest to find a way out of the country is despite the fact that the Indian Embassy in Ukraine issued an advisory on February 26 stating that nationals are urged not to travel to any border area without prior consultation with the Government of India officials at the border posts. Many students claim that since they are not able to reach out to the Indian Embassy, they are making their way to the border areas by themselves.
