“We have reached alive only because of the kindness of strangers in these two countries. Several people gave us food, water and allowed us to use toilets. Many gave us space to sleep. Families of our fellow students who were in these countries, especially those of Indian origin, helped us the most,” mentioned Adnan. His whole family had arrived from Bijnor to take him back home.They began their journey from Odessa on February 25 and reached Moldova, which is 80 kms away, on the same day. Then, they reached Romania on February 27. They have been near Romanian airport since then.For Firdaus and Zohra, the ordeal began on February 23, 2022. “When we woke up on February 23, there was only smoke all around us. A bomb blast had occurred less than 2 kms away from our medical college. We didn’t know what to do. Our university authorities initially said they would organise buses for us on February 25, but it was cancelled. We had to arrange for private buses to take us to Romania border. Each of us had to play close to Rs 1,800 to board the bus,” said Zohra. Both of them did not want to specify the name of their university.Most of the university students have left their luggage and several documents in the university as they had to escape the shelling. Even though they had arranged for a bus till the Romanian border, the bus stopped around 15 km away.“We had to walk. It took us more than 4 hours. They were not able to speak to their family for several days while crossing the borders as they had no internet connection. We did not think about death as we knew we had to brave it and get out of the war zone. We had to wait at the border for close to 12 hours to cross,” said Firdaus Alam. Both of their respective families had arrived from Lucknow and Kanpur to take them back home.There are more than 18,000 Indian students studying in Ukraine. According to information shared by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, fifteen ‘Operation Ganga’ flights have departed from Romania and Poland and close to 2,300 students have been able to return so far.
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