Russia-Ukraine crisis: 50 Mumbai students still stuck in bunker

About 50 students from Mumbai are still stuck up in war-torn Ukraine and are finding it difficult to leave the country. K. Krupakaran, 21, a medical student, wept when she spoke to her brother in Mumbai.

Johnson Ebenezer, the brother, told the media that when news of the death of an Indian student spread in Kharkiv, cabdrivers refused to take Indian students to the railway station.

Krupakaran, who is studying at the Kharkiv National Medical University, and many other students from Mumbai were living in an overcrowded bunker without any amenities for the past few days. Later, she and her friends paid an exorbitant amount to reach a station from where they took a train to a town near the Polish border.

They expect to cross over to Poland and then take a flight to Mumbai.

Sallauddin Khan, a resident of Mumbra on the outskirts of Mumbai, is awaiting the return of his brother, Naushad Rashid and a friend Sohaib Abrar Tanwar, both of who are waiting on the Romanian border.

“They told us that the temperatures were minus 10°C and all of them were waiting on the roadside to be evacuated,” Sallauddin told the media.

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“They didn’t have enough food and took a sip of water every two hours and had no sleep for many days. They were not able to sleep due to the tension, while they also ran out of batteries.”

The city’s municipal corporation will be providing free services including Covid testing and vaccines, food and other facilities to students being flown in from Ukraine.

• India