India awaits Russia, Ukraine response to ceasefire call to evacuate 700 students
Some 700 Indian nationals continued to be stranded in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, with no breakthrough on Sunday in efforts to arrange their evacuation amid intense fighting and shelling.
The Indian citizens, mostly students, continued to shelter in bunkers and campuses as there has been no response from Russia and Ukraine to calls from the Indian side for a local ceasefire to facilitate their evacuation, people familiar with the matter said.
On Saturday, the desperate students were dissuaded by Indian officials from leaving their shelters and marching out of Sumy. The students had said in a video posted on social media that they intended to walk from their campuses to the Russian border as they were running short of food and water.
Sumy continues to be the main focus of evacuation efforts in Ukraine, especially since most nationals have been pulled out of other conflict zones such as Kharkiv.
The Indian embassy in Kyiv launched a drive to ascertain if there are any more Indians caught up in conflict zones or other parts of Ukraine. The embassy sought details of any such Indians in a post on its Twitter handle.
“All Indian nationals who still remain in Ukraine are requested to fill up the details contained in the attached Google Form on an URGENT BASIS,” the embassy tweeted.
The people cited above said the move was aimed at any Indians who might not have registered with the embassy in January.
The embassy said in another tweet that a group of 44 Indians who had been sheltering in Pisochyn village near Kharkiv were on their way to the Polish border from Lviv.
Another group of more than 150 Indians had made their way to the Romanian border, it said.
The external affairs ministry said 15,920 Indians had been brought back so far in 76 evacuation flights. Thirteen flights landed in New Delhi and Mumbai on Saturday and Sunday, bringing back around 2,500 people.
Seven more evacuation flights are scheduled for Sunday and Monday, including one by the Indian Air Force using its C-17 heavy-lift aircraft. These flights take off from Budapest, Rzeszow and Suceava.
More than 21,000 Indians have left Ukraine since India issued its first travel advisory. Of them, 19,920 have reached India.
After sending six tranches of humanitarian aid to Ukraine through its neighbours, India despatched one more tranche of six tonnes of relief materials via Poland on Sunday.