International students trapped in a Ukrainian town near the Russian border have made desperate appeals for evacuation, as the number thought to be stranded in Sumy has risen to between 1,200 and 1,500, and they are running out of basic supplies.
Jana Kalaaji, a Syrian-Lebanese student who has been at the city’s university for a year, said: “There’s no electricity now. There is no water. There is no tapwater. There are no supplies. There is no heat because the heat comes with electricity.”
“Today I went to different markets in different places: one in the centre, one close to me, and one far from me. All of them are closed. I don’t think there’s supplies any more for the citizens here,” Kalaaji said. “No one understand the situation here because it’s crazy.
One student interviewed by Indian TV on Friday begged for immediate help, and confirmed they were running out of food and water. “Please take some immediate action or else we will die for sure,” she said.
Earlier this week, it emerged that 500 foreign students were stuck in the city, including almost 400 Nigerians, three Irish students and pupils from Rwanda, Lebanon and Tanzania.
Indian media are reporting that there are between 700 and 1,000 more. Aashik Hussain Sarkar, an Indian medical student, said they witnessed a massive bomb in Friday: “Please evacuate us immediately. More than 1,000 Indians are waiting.”
Today they dropped the vacuum bomb in Sumy Region. Everyone from our hostel saw... It was a mushroom shaped explosion with a circular flash. Please evacuate us immediately from here.. more than 1000 Indians are waiting...@PMOIndia @himantabiswa @IAF_MCC @opganga @TeamSOSIndia pic.twitter.com/2vehA0kseF
— Aashiq Hussain Sarkar (@AshiqHussainSar) March 3, 2022
One student told the Indian network NDTV they had been waiting on the street for buses to take them to the border when a loud explosion occurred and they rushed to the bunker under their student apartment block. Sumy was still under Ukrainian control, according to the students.
A student said: “Right now there is no electricity. There is shortage of water. When we heard that bombardment sound, we just took our passport and we ran into the bunkers. We were really so scared. This time the noise was really really extreme.
“We were waiting for a military pass to the border for one-and-a-half hours and at this last moment we heard this noise and we were shifted in here. Now the current situation is the Ukrainian government is now allowing us to travel to the border.”
“The explosion was really huge because we felt this in the bunker,” her friend said.
The Indian students were all in a single apartment building in Sumy and were reliant on small deliveries of food and water from a local church, said Chandramohan Nallur, an Indian volunteer at the Polish border, helping students stuck in the country.
“Luckily I found a contact who used to live in Lviv. They are arranging some food and water through a church,” he said. “There are about 700 in one building. Shelling is still going on; there’s a lot of panic.”
Another student said their hopes of rescue were dying, with armed men seen outside their hostel making it unsafe to go out.
Day 9 of Ukraine-Russia War
— Mahek Shaikh (@maheeekkk) March 4, 2022
No water supply. High Alert. Slow Network. Temperature Drop. Heavy Snowfall.
Evacuation? Not yet.
Hopes? Lost.
📍 Sumy, Ukraine pic.twitter.com/Hw2B8Tk6n7
All public transport out of the town has been cancelled and going the 25-mile (40km) distance to the Russian border is impossible.
Christiana Diyaolu, from Carlow in Ireland, whose 19-year-old sister Racheal is trapped, told RTÉ that a journey to the southern or western border would take 20 hours and would be unviable because of bombs, gunfire and shelling.
“This is the first time my sister has been away from home since she was born. We just want her to come home,” she said.
“We just want her to come home.”
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) March 4, 2022
The sister of a 19-year-old Carlow medical student who is stranded in Ukraine has appealed for more help to bring her home. Christiana Diyaolu says her family are “distraught” that her sister Racheal hasn’t been able to flee the city of Sumy. pic.twitter.com/2pjy5yloRm
Oluwaseun Adefemi, a Nigerian medical student, and three others told how they managed to escape from Sumy on Thursday in a private vehicle. But they said it was a dangerous journey out of the city, where they heard blasts, and passed damaged military equipment and soldiers conducting a burial.
Kalaaji said she was aware of some students having escaped by car as far as the Ukrainian town of Poltava.
“I don’t know if I will do the same. It may just have been luck [that the other students escaped,” she said. “None of the students here are waiting or expecting anything from the government any more”.
Nigeria’s government said on Thursday it was advocating for a safe corridor by which 368 students who were stuck in Sumy could leave.
The Indian government said 3,000 students had already been evacuated.
