Only Pork & Beef To Eat At Ukrainian Borders As Helpless Indian Students Wait For Assistance

Hopes of stranded Indian students in Ukraine are hanging by a thread, as they walk for miles with huge luggage in sub-zero temperatures to escape war and reach the bordering countries.

Countless Indian students and professionals are stuck in different parts of Ukraine, facing a full-blown attack by Russia. Amid blasts, cross-border shelling, and some efforts by the Indian government to evacuate them, Indian students who are caught in the military crisis are left to fend for themselves.

A 20-year-old student in Ukraine, Rahul Gupta, has been living in a Romanian shelter for the last two days.

Gupta told Indiatimes that he and his friends walked for about eight kilometres with all of their luggage to reach the Romanian border in the dead of the night.

"Only pork and beef available for food"

Gupta, a medical student, highlighted that at most places there only serve pork and beef to eat. "We have to go without food as they (Ukrainian and Romanian shelters at borders) are only serving pork and beef sandwiches. We don't eat meat, so we removed the meat part and ate the bread," he said on a call from Romania.

Gupta, originally from Telangana, went to Ukraine in 2019 as an MBBS student of the Vinnitsya National Medical University. He has three more years left to complete his course. He said the course has been put on halt and we are told that we have to give another exam to continue the studies here when and if the situation gets normal again.

Rahul Gupta, originally from Hyderabad, went to Ukraine in 2019 as an MBBS student of the Vinnitsya National Medical University / Special Arrangement

His voice was shaky as he struggled with a poor connection.

"Stood for 18 hours in -4 degrees"

For Gupta, the night of February 28 was the worst, the one he "will never forget."

It was on February 28 when he stood for 18 hours in sub-zero temperature, braving the snow with 26 of his friends, with little to eat or drink.

He was among the 1,600 students who arrived by buses and stood in long queues, separately for men and women, waiting to be allowed to cross over the Romania border by the Ukraine army.

¡°We had the options of going to Hungary, Poland, or Romania. We heard the Ukraine army is harassing students in Poland. Some of my friends were also beaten up and harassed by the Ukrainian Army. So we came to Bucharest," Gupta narrated.

Indian students were beaten by Ukrainian police and border guards and were not allowed to leave the country. Because India was a neutral country in the UN.
Ukrainian border guards pull students by the hair and beat them with rods and sticks, hit students in the face. pic.twitter.com/e68ZwEM59r

¡ª Maria Dubovikova (@politblogme) February 28, 2022

He spoke from a shelter home in the Romanian capital, where hundreds of Indian students wait eagerly to go home.

"We had to stand for hours. I understand the situation there is extremely critical but we are going through so much. We were allowed to cross the border only in batches of 30 students released every half-an-hour. The water we were carrying got over soon and there was no place to refill. We were all supporting each other and sat on the luggage by turns," he said.

He added that two girls fainted because they were on their period and were in a lot of pain but had to wait for hours in that extreme weather.

"Don't know when we will return home"

While India announced that they have pressed the Indian Air Force into action and they are sending a C-17 Globemaster for evacuation of Indian nationals along with other commercial flights, thousands of students remain clueless about it.

"When the attack started, we could hear rockets and bombing all day and night. We reached out to our agents who said that there's nothing to worry about.

"This is all a political drama, nothing is going to happen," Gupta quoted the agent as saying.

Gupta said that he has received the flight scheduled for today, and there are a total of four flights, but he doesn't know anything beyond it.

He added that Romanian authorities are helping Indian students as much as they can but "there is not a single Indian official to assist us."

Indian students stranded in Ukraine / Special Arrangement

"They are providing us food, water, power banks, and blankets but there's little help from Indian authorities. We only receive daily advisories and notifications but nothing beyond that," he said, adding that he wants to catch the next available flight, reach India and meet his parents, "who have been extremely worried and crying due to helplessness."

The death of a medical student from Telangana in Kharkiv shocked the country yesterday.

On Tuesday morning, Naveen SG, a 21-year-old fourth-year medical student from Karnataka, stepped out of the bunker, where the students had been holed up for the past six days, to buy groceries ¡ª and became the first Indian casualty in Russia¡¯s invasion of Ukraine.

India has accelerated efforts to bring back its nationals and the Indian embassy in Ukraine advised Indian nationals and students to leave Kyiv "urgently today preferably by available trains or through any means available."

India says that all of its nationals have left Kyiv, while some are still in Kharkiv and Sumy.

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