In Delhi, protest by parents, friends of those stuck in Ukraine

Most people present at the protest said their loved ones were in Kharkhiv in Eastern Ukraine, very close to Russia, whereas the borders were being opened in the western part of the country. This they posed a problem as students would not be able to make their way to these places, hundreds of kilometres away.

Sunil Pandey (50) said his son Aayush Pandey who studies in Kharkhiv National Medical University (KNMU) was sleeping in bunkers in hostels. “They are living under extreme duress, without heating in temperatures of -3 degrees Celsius. We are going on calling the Indian Embassy there but nob ody picks up. The government is saying go towards the west. How will they go so far? We demand that our children should be brought back immediately, at the government’s cost,” he said.

Security personnel who were deployed near the protest area to monitor the situation

Also at the protest was Khushboo Kalani (24). Also a student of KNMU, she had come to Delhi in January to attend her sister’s wedding. She was supposed to return to Ukraine on February 23 when flights started getting cancelled. , “There is only one demand we have from the government: please get our friends back. You are opening borders in the western regions.But how will students get there? Kharkhiv is in the east, Kyiv in the centre. There should be some way through which students stuck in these areas should be removed. We won’t stop protesting till they are brought back,” she said.

#RussiaUkraineCrisis | “Indian students were supposed to be evacuated today but the plan didn’t work out,” Indian student Sadaf Zarrin, stuck at Vinnytsia Medical College in Ukraine, tells https://t.co/XYlZoUMMsK.https://t.co/EI8mtPv59T pic.twitter.com/dO4tgb047I

— The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) February 25, 2022

Veronica Arora (26). Neerja Antil (24), and Tarannum Bano(26), alumna of KNMU, said their juniors and friends were stuck inside metro stations. “They are scared when they will be bombed. Supermarkets are running out of stocks, they have also told that water supply will be cut down from today. Kharkhiv is really close to Russia. We want our friends and family to be safe. This is a question of their life and death,” said Bano.

A parent video calls his son in Kharkhiv. The student is currently staying in bunkers inside their university hostel

Mamta Sharma (45), said her daughter Aradhya Vats was also stuck in Kharkhiv. She’s a student of the V N Karazin Kharkhiv National University. “They are just packed together in bunkers without being able to move around too much. They have been told to stay inside no matter what, whether they get food or not. I just want my child back. I had booked her ticket back by paying Rs 60,000 but with the airspace closed, she’s stuck,” she said.

#RussiaUkraineCrisis | Indian students stranded in Ukraine take refuge in bunkers in Kharkivhttps://t.co/RWNfzeARxG pic.twitter.com/S24laVkl4S

— The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) February 25, 2022

Musharraf, whose friend is also stuck in Ukraine, said, “We are being told Russia and India are friends, so we will be safe. But when a bomb hits it will not see whether it’s an Indian or Ukrainian. If there is such friendship, why can’t the India government get us evacuated? Air India has also been privatised. The one airline that was involved in this kind of rescue work now has tickets priced upwards of a lakh. Is there no value of human life?”