Indian medical student sheltering in bunker speaks of her fears
Categories: FOREIGN COUNTRIES
For Khwaish Thapa, 19, from the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, the Ukrainian town of Kharkiv was home away from home. The Russian invasion of the country changed all that.Just hours before she was asked to switch off her phone due to security alert, Thapa, a student in Kharkiv National Medical University, spoke to WION on how her life was transformed overnight.Thapa was to board her flight back home on February 25. She is currently taking shelter in a basement with 500 other students. Nobody around her thought events would spiral into a war-like situation before she went to bed that night. “At 5 AM, it was my father who called from India to break the news to me. And that’s when I peeped from my window to see and hear sounds of bombardment. On checking my phone, my friends had also sent videos of what was happening around the city,” she said.“Before going to the bunker, we tried to carry some food and water with us, but all the water tanks outside had run dry. There were long queues outside grocery stores, we took whatever was available - glucose, fruits, chocolates, wafers and readymade chapatis. Here at the college the basement, food and basics are looked after, while those who rushed to the metro stations are running out of supplies,” she added. She said that those evacuated are students from the western region of Ukraine. “For us to reach the border checkpoint of Poland, Hungary or Romania it will take around 17 hours and travelling is not a safe option at this point. Though we’ve been made to understand that civilians will not be harmed, but we have seen videos of apartments being bombed.”While speaking of safety, the student said even the pandemic went by peacefully, but what unfolded in these three days is unimaginable. She called the city “an easy going and adaptable place”. Russian troops moving around the country with heavy artillery, on day 1 on the invasion had captured Antonov airbase and Chernobyl. Now, reports are emerging that they have blown up a natural gas pipeline in Kharkiv.As the situation outside is worsening, she along with her batchmates and friends, is hoping to be evacuated and brought back home at the earliest.