Five Punjabi students return from Ukraine, thank their stars, country’s embassy

Gurdaspur, March 5

Five medical students belonging to Punjab returned from war-torn Ukraine on Friday evening.

They returned to their home towns, heaving a sigh of relief and thanking their stars that they managed to come out of Ukrainian city Kharkiv amid heavy shelling by the Russian forces.

Jasmeet Kaur, who is from Gurdaspur, said she along with other students decided to move out of Kharkiv on February 28.

They were staying in the basement of their hostel and stepped out of it after being left with no food or water.

With private taxis demanding a huge sum of money, they trudged 4 km to reach Kharkiv railway station, she said, adding there was a huge rush of people at the railway station.

She said the authorities there were allowing Ukrainians to board the trains first.

Kaur said they could manage to board only after missing two trains for Lviv in order to head towards the Hungary border.

Harpreet Jassi, who is from Jalandhar said they had been hearing loud sounds of bombing as the Russian forces had intensified their offensive.

“We were constantly hearing sounds of bombing and shelling. Had we not decided to leave Kharkiv, we would have been stranded there,” said Jassi.

Anmol, another student who is from Amritsar, said they had to stand in the train for maximum time in their over the 24-hour journey.

Anmol thanked the Indian embassy for their support.

“Officials of the Indian embassy have helped us with essentials including food and water,” said Anmol.

Another Kharkiv National University student Smily Sharma said because of shelling, she along with her three friends were first stuck at Kharkiv railway station and then in Kyiv.

They later hired a cab to reach the Poland border, she added.