Animesh Mishra, 22, questioned the nature of the evacuation from his hostel room in the western Ukrainian city of Pesochin. He had escaped war-torn Kharkiv on Wednesday after being trapped in a hostel bunker with fellow students since the Russian invasion began eight days ago.
Mishra was among the hundreds of medical students who walked 25 km to reach Pesochin late Wednesday, following an urgent call from the Indian embassy on Twitter for all students in Kharkiv to leave within four hours and seek shelter at three locations around the city.
He had tried to leave the city by train the day before the embassy’s call but couldn’t find any transportation to the station. Luckily, on Wednesday morning, he was able to get a taxi. However, that’s where his luck ended.
“It was chaotic,” Mishra said. “Some students managed to board the train to Lviv, but most of us were stranded at the station. That’s when we decided to walk to the towns recommended by the embassy.”
As the group began their walk, there was an explosion a couple of hundred meters away.
“We were stunned. Some people fell, either from the force of the blast or from shock. We all walked yesterday, risking our lives.”
Describing the place where the students were housed, Mishra said, “Yesterday it was quiet here. I didn’t hear any blasts for the first time in days. Now it has started again. Are we even safe here?”
Dr. K P S Sandhu, one of the education contractors for the region, stated in his Instagram video updates that there were 1,200 students stuck in Kharkiv. While a few hundred managed to board trains, around 500 stayed at the station bunker, and the rest walked to the three towns.
He was attempting to organize buses to take the students to the border.
“I know that a couple of my friends were stuck in Kharkiv until afternoon; now they might have started walking to these shelters,” Mishra said. “But does it even matter? It’s not like we know how to reach the border from here. We haven’t heard about any plans from the embassy.”
“The government is calling this an evacuation, but they have been flying out people from the western parts of the country who were already safe. Those who managed to reach the borders did so on their own. Nobody was there to help them.”
