Evacuating Indian students stranded in Ukraine amidst a raging conflict is a huge challenge

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has a direct bearing on India due to the sizeable population of Indians who live in Ukraine, most of them young students. Ukraine is a popular destination for students to pursue an MBBS degree. Most of the stranded students are from South India.

Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Thursday that around 4,000 Indian nationals out of 20,000 have already left Ukraine in the past few days. About 16,000 Indian students are still stuck in the warzone as the Russian invasion continues.

Here is a state-wise breakup of current records of Indian students in Ukraine, though the actual numbers may vary.

Assam: 100 students

Andhra Pradesh and Telangana: 3,000 students

Chhattisgarh: 70 students

Gujarat: 2,500 students

Haryana and Punjab: 2,200 students

Himachal Pradesh: 200 students

Jharkhand: 6 people

Karnataka: 346 people, including 91 students

Kerala: 2,000 students

Madhya Pradesh: 46 students

Maharashtra: 1,200 students

Meghalaya: 10 students

Odisha: 1,500 students

Rajasthan: 900 students

Sikkim: 20 students

Tamil Nadu: 5,000 students

Tripura: 50 students

Uttarakhand: 85 people

As Ukraine closed its airspace for civilian aircraft following the Russian attack, India is looking at evacuating its nationals from Ukraine through land routes.

“Neighbouring countries have been asked to send their officers to border areas to facilitate entry of Indian nationals. We have asked some officers to go to border areas to set up makeshift facilitation centers,” the Foreign Secretary said.

A group of around 40 Indian medical students of Daynlo Halytsky Medical University, Lviv, on Friday walked towards the Ukraine-Poland border in freezing temperature. They had to walk on foot as they were dropped nearly 8 kms from the border point by the college bus.

The Indian embassy in Ukraine tweeted on Friday: "Today afternoon more than 470 students will exit Ukraine and enter Romania through the Porubne-Siret Border. We are moving Indians located at the border to neighbouring countries for onward evacuation. Efforts are underway to relocate Indians coming from the hinterland."

India managed to set up camp offices in Lviv and Chernivtsi towns in western Ukraine to facilitate the transit of Indians to Hungary, Romania and Poland, official sources said. The real difficulty is in evacuation of Indians stuck in the hinterland and Eastern Ukraine, bordering Russia.

Two medical students, natives of Vizianagaram district in Andhra Pradesh, who are hiding in a bunker near Kharkiv National Medical University in Eastern Ukraine, have sent videos of Russian bomb attacks as well as their situation in bunkers to their family members. Mylapalli Yamuna of Chepala Kancheru village and S Jithendra of Budarayavalasa village are studying at Kharkiv National Medical University.

Speaking to a newspaper, Mylapalli Yamuna, a fifth-year medical student said: “I have been hiding in a bunker for over 24 hours. There is no supply of food, water, and other essentials. The majority of the students stranded here have been spending a horrible time in underground bunkers. We are also facing a severe cold situation with minus one degree Celsius temperature. I am hearing explosive sounds continuously from the outside. I do not understand what is happening outside. I appeal to the Indian government to evacuate us as soon as possible”.

Indian students in eastern Ukraine, which is bearing the brunt of the Russian attack, have spent the last 24 hours in bunkers listening to heavy shelling and firing, while their western Ukraine counterparts are seeing a sliver of hope as land evacuation routes open up on Saturday.

The Indian government said that teams of Indian foreign ministry officials have been sent to Ukraine's borders with Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania to assist any fleeing Indian nationals.

But the students of Kharkiv National Medical University in Eastern Ukraine say that they have no means to travel over 1,000 kilometers towards the western borders, to enter neighboring countries. Evacuation of these students from eastern Ukraine poses a real challenge for the Indian government.

(V Venkateswara Rao is an alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad and a retired corporate professional. Views are personal)