New Delhi: A video began circulating Friday on social media of Indian students stranded in Ukraine’s Sumy city, over 350 km from capital Kyiv, boiling snow amid a water and food shortage. In the clip, a student can be seen filing a polythene bag full of snow from a bench outside his hostel, and then melting it in an electric kettle.
Spoke to Stranded Indian studnts in Sumy state #Ukraine.Huge explosion near studnts hostel, Everyone is frightened, anxious. No availability of Light. Studnts took ice frm outside hostel & now melting it for drinking, as there is no water available.@Nidhi @_sayema @alishan_jafri pic.twitter.com/XLzZNLVnCB
— Nasir Khuehami (ناصر کہویہامی) (@NasirKhuehami) March 4, 2022
Speaking to ThePrint over a WhatsApp call, 24-year-old Mohammad Aasif Tariq, the student in the video, said: “Melting the snow was my idea. I’m from Kashmir, so I know these little tactics.”
Tariq is one of nearly 600-800 Indian medical students from Sumy State University currently hiding out across three different hostels near their university.
There are students from other countries like Turkey, Uzbekistan and Nigeria in the hostels too.
The students have not drunk water nor eaten a proper meal since Thursday night when, around 9 pm IST, a thermal power plant in nearby Okhtyrka was bombed, leading to a complete blackout in areas in the vicinity. The students say they have had unreliable electricity in their hostels since the bombing.
A nearby railway station was also reportedly bombed.
This compounds the challenge for the beleaguered students in Sumy, unlike many in Kharkiv, who were able to catch trains to Lviv, in west Ukraine.
Sumy is a city in north-eastern Ukraine close to the Russian border. It is just north of Kharkiv, where nearly 1,000 Indian students remain stranded and where one Indian student, Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar, died in shelling earlier this week.
I am a student in Sumy, Ukraine. YES WE EXIST!!! There are 700-800 students in Sumy. It’s the 7th day of attack and there is no confirmed news on our evacuation. Stress , fear and anxiety are getting to us. Hope is lost. Pls help. #OpGanga @narendramodi @MEAIndia @IndiainUkraine
— Radhika Sangwan (@sangwan_radhika) March 2, 2022
Also read: ‘Gunmen asked why don’t you join our fight’: Indian students recall nightmare of exiting Ukraine
‘No hostage situation in Sumy’
In a national address Thursday night, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Ukrainian forces have kept 3,000 Indian students hostage in Kharkiv and 576 in Sumy.
Kartik Nandwana, 24, Tariq’s classmate who shot the video of him collecting snow, denied claims of a hostage situation in Sumy.
“I’ve been living in Ukraine for the past five years. The people here are not like that. Just a few days ago, we had gone out to get some supplies and there were armed Ukrainian soldiers everywhere. They didn’t intimidate us at all. I think rumours about a hostage situation are just propaganda,” he told ThePrint.
The students have been in touch with Indian government authorities, who they say are currently working on implementing a humanitarian corridor so that Russia can give safe passage to Indian students.
Moscow said Wednesday that it was working on launching a “humanitarian corridor” for evacuation of Indian nationals stuck in eastern Ukraine.
However, the students in Sumy are losing hope.
“Not a single Indian student has been evacuated from Sumy. We’ve been in touch with embassy officials who keep saying we will be evacuated tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes. Our city is surrounded by Russian forces and railway tracks were destroyed by bombing. Tell me, how will we get out?” said Nandwana.
‘Girls fainted after bombing’
One female student in Sumy, who wished to remain anonymous, recalled how many of her female college mates fainted after the bombing of the power plant and some of her male friends had to carry them on their shoulders to underground bunkers.
“I remember I was talking to my brother and one of my friends was in the kitchen making coffee for the rest of us. Then, all the lights went off and we went to the balcony and saw a huge explosion. It was so close to our hostel. Some girls immediately fainted and boys had to carry the girls on their shoulders to the bunkers,” she said.
“We really thought this was our last day on earth. That they would bomb our hostel next,” she added.
The students spent the whole of Thursday night in the bunkers and came out around Friday noon, when they deemed it was safe.
Currently, their food supplies consist of snacky items like chips and chocolates, which they feel will not last very long.
“Female students are also facing problems. Some of the girls are on their periods but we are scared to go out and buy sanitary pads after the bombing. After Naveen [Shekharappa Gyanagoudar] died in Kharkiv, our parents have begged us not to step out,” added the student.
(Edited by Saikat Niyogi)
Also read: No Indian student is hostage in Ukraine, foreign ministry rubbishes claims