Sabir Hussain/New Delhi

Many Indian students had a harrowing time crossing the borders from Ukraine during the evacuation in the wake of the war in that country.

Many of them were studying medicine in Ternopil.

Patna’s Rishab Mishra, a third-year medical student said the group with which he left Ternopil on February 25 took 36 hours to cross into Romania. 

“We travelled six hours to reach the Ukraine-Romania border and found that it was closed for Indian students. They opened the border after almost three hours and every five minutes 10 people were allowed to cross,” Rishab told Awaz-The Voice from Romania.

But relief did not come quickly.

“We were in a queue for eight hours. Students ahead in the line were pushing a lot on the barricade which prompted the border guards to fire in the air. We were about to cross the border when they closed it and said to clear the area and we were asked to wait again for 5-6 hours.”

Rishab says the pattern repeated itself over and over again for three days while the weather worsened.

“We all were shivering and I lost sensation in my legs. There were almost 2000 students and more were arriving. On the third night, we stood continuously for 17 hours without leaving the queue and only then we crossed the border. During these 17 hours, there were three snowstorms that brought tears to all of us. Locals provided food and water but many avoided that so that we did not need to use washrooms,” he said.

On the night of February 28, the group finally crossed into Romania. Late Tuesday night, Rishab said he had no idea when he would be included in an evacuation flight under Operation Ganga.

Ankit Kanojiya, another third-year medical student from Ternopil had only a slightly less agonizing story to tell. He was part of a group of evacuees in a convoy of four buses which dropped them about 5 km from the border around 2 am.

“We walked to the border in extreme cold conditions and found that Ukrainians and Romanians were given preference in border crossing,” said Ankit who hails from Banapura in Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh.

“There was a café but it ran out of food. Then most people used it as a shelter because of the cold but obviously, it could not accommodate everybody. Later, Ukrainian volunteers lit bonfires for those stranded outside.”

Once his batch crossed the border, an Indian representative met them and they were to an apartment block near the airport where 10 people were housed in each apartment. Late Monday night they boarded an aircraft for Delhi.

Like other students, Ankit’s major worry now is about his studies.

“The University has declared vacation till March 12. After that, it will decide whether to start online classes. We can only hope that the war ends quickly and everybody can get along with their lives,” he said.