22 Students From Odisha Return To India; Hundreds Still Hiding In Bunkers & Metros In Ukraine’s Kharkiv

Bhubaneswar: The death of an Indian student Naveen Shekharappa in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, where Russian airborne troops landed on Wednesday after a deadly 24-hour shelling, has pressed the panic bottom back home in Odisha. While around 30 to 40 students from the state managed to leave the eastern Ukrainian city in the last 24 hours, hundreds of others are still hiding in bunkers and metros and are low in cash, food and water, according to media reports.

A bomb went off near the metro at Heroiv Prasti at Kharkiv where three Odia girls are stranded, the TNIE reported and quoted one of them as saying that they would walk down to Studentska railway station on Wednesday morning to catch a train.

Meanwhile, the Odisha government was able to contact 118 stranded students till Tuesday evening and has received an additional list of 428 students from the Home Ministry.  “The control room is discussing with them their current condition and are intimating the guardians. We are discussing the evacuation plan. Many are saying they will exit Ukraine through Poland and Hungary border,” Joint commissioner (relief), SRC office, Padmanav Behera told TOI.

The government, however, has no details of the cities where the students are stranded and how many of them are girls.

According to the office of State Resident Commissioner, New Delhi, 22 students of Odisha has so far returned to India from the war-ravaged Ukraine.