New Delhi: The last large group of around 600 Indian students, who were evacuated from Ukraine’s north-eastern city of Sumy, have boarded a special train from Lviv to Poland and are likely to fly to India on Thursday. The students reached Lviv in western Ukraine from Poltava by another special train.
The Indian Embassy in Ukraine said in a tweet on Wednesday, “The Ambassador flagged off the special train with 600 Indian students of Sumy University at Lviv Railway Station. They will travel to Poland and are expected to board the evacuation flights to India tomorrow. Be safe, have courage.”
Several videos appeared on social media in which students were seen holding the tricolor in their hands and shouting slogans like ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. Students in Sumy, who were in severe pain for two weeks, have been evacuated by several means of transport, covering hundreds of miles across Ukraine. The Government of India is carrying out the most challenging evacuation exercise under ‘Operation Ganga’ to rescue Indians stranded in Ukraine.
The evacuation operation in Sumi began on Tuesday morning with the last large group of 600 Indians being evacuated from the city. Student coordinator Anshad Ali told that Indian citizens were taken from Sumy to Poltava in a convoy of 13 buses by the International Red Cross Committee.
The students are on an arduous journey to escape the war-torn area. It is the second attempt to expel him from Sumy, which has been under heavy fire since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month. It is noteworthy that the distance between Poltava and Lviv is about 888 kilometers.
Jisna Jiji, a 25-year-old medical student on the train, told PTI that she and the other students were relieved after coming out of Sumi. He said, “We are tired but happy. We have been traveling since Tuesday morning and have to travel for several hours, but now we are hopeful that we will reach home safely.”
Ali told PTI from Poltava that there is a train journey of about 12 hours to Lviv from where the students will be taken to Poland. Ali said around 600 Indians were evacuated from the city and that some Bangladeshi and Nepalese nationals were also in the group. “After Indian students, students from other countries were also evicted. About 95 percent of the students have been evacuated from Sumi.
Indian students had to face a lot of trouble due to lack of food, water and other essentials in the basements of their hostels amid the bitter cold during heavy shelling in Sumi for two weeks. The first attempt to remove them was made on March 7 after a video was shared by the troubled students. In the video, these students had said that they have decided to travel on foot to the Russian border. Their attempt failed as the ceasefire was not enforced and they had to return to their hostels.
The Indian Embassy in Ukraine has issued an advisory urging all stranded Indian nationals to use the “humanitarian corridor” and leave the country by train or any other mode of transport keeping in mind their safety. “All stranded Indian nationals are requested to make use of this opportunity and get out using train or vehicles or any other available mode of transport keeping in view the safety,” the advisory said. )