SUMY (UKRAINE): The number of Indian students stranded in Sumy, which is nearly 60 km from the Russian border, is put at around 700. These students have been sending SOS messages and posting videos on social media platforms, pleading for their urgent evacuation from the conflict zone.
One such video, which highlighted their plight, showed a student filing a polythene bag full of snow outside his hostel, and then melting it in an electric kettle. The students have not drunk water, nor eaten a proper meal, since Thursday night when a thermal power plant in nearby Okhtyrka was bombed, leading to a complete blackout, says a report in the Print.
Since it started snowing, they need heaters which are useless unless there is power supply. Another essential which they are running out of is food. Super markets are closed; only cash is accepted but ATMs have run dry, says a media report.
According to MEA, they have strongly urged Russian and Ukrainian governments through multiple channels for an immediate ceasefire to create a safe corridor for the students. However, with a limited cease-fire getting vitiated in the two cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha, hope is flickering for those stuck in Sumy and Kharkiv.
Nonetheless, the embassy has been able to reach out to 298 Indian students in Pisochyn and buses were being arranged to evacuate them. These students had arrived in Pisochyn from Kharkiv following an advisory issued by the embassy on Wednesday.
The mission also said it is in touch with all the interlocutors concerned, including the Red Cross, to identify the exit routes to take out the Indians from Sumy.
Russia, too, has informed the UN Security Council that buses are ready at crossing points to go to the eastern Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Sumy to evacuate Indian students and other foreign nationals who are stranded there.
