Assam students stuck in NE Ukraine: 'Only way out is through Russia'

GUWAHATI: The number of stranded Assam natives in Ukraine is going up and the last update from the state home department confirmed there are 222 residents in the war-ravaged country. On Tuesday, the figure was 160.
"We have got details of 222 students in Ukraine. About 30 have reached India as per the latest update. The details are being shared with the Union ministry of external affairs," Assam home secretary, Diganta Borah, told TOI on Wednesday noon.He added that information given by MEA on policies and related updates are being shared with the students and their parents.
Four more Assam students arrived in India from Ukraine on Wednesday morning. Gurpreet Kaur from Silchar, Dhritiman Victor Bhuyan from Kokrajhar, Panchi Mohan from Guwahati and Anisha Gogoi from Jagun arrived at the Indira Gandhi International airport in New Delhi via flight no 6E 12 through Istanbul. "We were in Uzhhorod, which was still free from trouble because it is a city located in western Ukraine. But there was a huge shortage of cash. ATMs have been crowded with people," said Panchi. Anisha, on the other hand, narrated a 72-hour journey from west Ukraine to Budapest to board a flight to India.
Till date, Assam students have arrived mostly from western Ukraine, but the biggest concern has been the Assam students stranded in and around Kharkiv in the northeast, where intense fighting is under way. Kharkiv city is just around 60 km from Sumy city, close to the Russian border. Several students of medicine from Assam are confined to Sumy and they need to cross Kharkiv in order to reach the bordering countries in the west------ Hungary, Romania and Poland------- which have turned out to be the major exit routes.
Even as the students fear to come out of Sumy, in the latest development, some of the stranded students in Sumy told TOI that their local guardians assured them they would make all efforts to evacuate them. "To reach the western border we need to go through either Kharkiv or Kyiv. But at the moment it seems impossible to travel through both the cities. The only possible way to escape is through Russia if the Indian government takes up our case," said Guwahati boy Bishal Das, stranded at the Sumy State University hostel in Zamostianska Street, 7.