NEW DELHI: Dragging bags and lugging backpacks, groups of Indian students in Kharkiv filed out of their underground shelters on Wednesday and quietly marched at least 10km on the bombed-out streets to reach railway stations, but many of them were left stranded on platforms as guards thrashed and pushed out foreigners, allowing only Ukrainians and women to board the packed trains.
Some, however, made it in the chaos to board a train for a 14-hour ride to Lviv in western Ukraine close to the Polish border. “If there’s space left, girls are let in. Boys are beaten up if they step inside. I’ve eaten one slice of bread the whole day and have just one jacket. How are we supposed to get out of here?” said Anenna Vinod from Karnataka, a first-year student at Kharkiv National Medical University.
Indian officials told the students to get out of the ‘bunkers’ where they have been holing up since the war began a week ago with little food and water, and move out of the city by 6pm local time on Wednesday—even walk to places like Pisochyn, Babai and Beslyudivka, some 11-16km away. The Russian offensive have intensified in the eastern city of Kharkiv and a student from Karnataka got killed on Tuesday when he stepped out searching for food.
