Guwahati, March 3: Altogether 59 students of Assam have been evacuated from the borders of war-ravaged Ukraine till Thursday evening by the Union ministry of external affairs, even as many from the state are still stranded in the eastern and north-eastern parts of the European country, close to the Russian border.
On Thursday, the eighth day of the military onslaught on Ukraine by Russia, 26 students from the state were among other Indians evacuated by special flights from the war-hit country by the MEA.
They were received by Assam Bhawan officials in New Delhi.
“Happy that another student from Assam studying in Ukraine, Sai Swapneel, has been evacuated by the MEA (ministry of external affairs). Arrangements for his travel from Delhi to Assam are being made. So far, 59 students from Assam have been evacuated from the war-torn country,” Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma informed through Twitter on Thursday evening.
Reportedly, a majority of the students evacuated so far are from ‘relatively safer’ western Ukraine. They have been evacuated through countries from the western borders of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, many stranded students are spending days and nights in fear and uncertainty, taking refuge in basements and bunkers, in cities such Kharkiv (in eastern Ukraine), which has been heavily bombed over the past week, and Sumy, which till now has not come under direct military attack, (located between capital, Kyiv and Kharkiv) in north-eastern Ukraine.
Authorities had on Tuesday morning received a list of 160 students from Assam who were awaiting evacuation from Ukraine amidst indiscriminate shelling and air bombing by Russian military forces.
Reports say that at least 78 of them are students belonging to universities and colleges of eastern Ukraine while at least 64 of them are studying in institutions in western Ukraine (closer to Hungarian, Slovakian, Romanian and Polish borders) from where evacuation operations by the ministry of external affairs have been intensified under ‘Operation Ganga’.
