Indian students are on their way to Poland, where they will be flown home today

Indian students from Ukraine’s Sumy city, who were among the last major groups to be evacuated from the east European country during the Russian invasion, are expected to be flown home from Poland on Thursday.

The Indian Embassy in Ukraine announced the news on Wednesday, saying that the students, who had been stranded at Sumy State University in northeast Ukraine, had boarded a special train from Lviv to Poland’s western border. The special train was flagged off by Indian Ambassador Partha Satpathy. “At Lviv Railway Station, the Ambassador flags off a special train with 600 Indian students from Sumy University.” They will travel to Poland, where they will board evacuation flights to India the following day. On Twitter, the embassy said, “Be Safe, Be Strong.”

In another tweet, the embassy stated that Ukrainian authorities assisted in the train’s arrangement. “Mission will continue to assist them in their westward movement. It tweeted, “Bringing our students back safely and securely will remain our top priority.” “We reached Lviv in the afternoon and are on our way to the Poland border,” said Mahtab, a student in the homebound group. The government has been bringing Indian nationals back from the besieged nation via Air India and Indian Air Force aircraft under “Operation Ganga,” but evacuating the students from Sumy has proven to be a major challenge. 83 flights have returned over 17,100 Indians as of Tuesday.

The government has asked the remaining stranded Indians in Ukraine to use the humanitarian corridors as Operation Ganga nears its end, saying that an announcement of another such corridor is “uncertain.” The students were evacuated from Sumy after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to ask for their help in creating a safe passage for them. Sumy is 350 kilometres east of Kyiv and 180 kilometres north of Kharkiv. Over the last few days, the city, which is close to the Russian border, has seen intense hostilities.

According to sources, India’s efforts allowed at least 15 students from a variety of countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Tunisia, to leave Sumy in the Indian convoy.

Picture Courtesy: Google/Images are subject to copyright