Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): “We are in the bunkers near the Kharkiv Medical University. There are at least 200 of us, and we have no more food available to spend. Many of us have taken ill,” said a Madhya Pradesh girl holed up in the bunker amidst shelling and firing in Kharkiv city of Ukraine in her last conversation with Free Press over a WhatsApp call on Sunday morning.
Free Press has failed to establish contact with her after 10.30 am.
She had said that the bunkers do not have hygienic washrooms for them relieve themselves and many girls who were menstruating were in a crunch.
Despite all the drawbacks, the narrow bunker is now a home for these students trying to survive the war.
A student in Ukraine who hails from Ujjain, Opil Jain, says, “We received an advisory last night to turn off my location ASAP as the Russians are targeting geo tag cluster locations. We were asked to turn off the lights and not to go near windows, if we are not in a bomb shelter underground. We were asked to maintain pin drop silence.”
Just as he read the text, Jain says he heard an attack that turned the street outside into a crater.
Another student, Divya Singh, who is in Ternopil city of Ukraine says, “The local administration is continuously sounding red alerts here. We are in hiding in our apartments, as we do not have access to the bunkers. We are running out of ration and water. Shops are shut, there is no assistance from the government.”
Divya told Free Press about one of her friends who is stuck in Odessa, “I am not able to contact him for past seven hours. Last time we talked, he had showed me the situation in his bunker over a video call where twelve people were fitting inside a bunker made for five. There were last few packets of bread left with them. I could hear the shelling and bombarding over the call. They were so loud and clear as if they were happening right in front of his hiding spot.”
Divya is a resident of Gulmohar in Bhopal. Her mother Shanti Singh said, “Though she told me over the call to stay safe, I could listen to the fear in her voice. I do not know what to say. Looking at the situation at the borders, we cannot even ask her to rush towards them. She is at least safe from the freezing cold inside the city.”
