Agency :
An Indian student stranded in Ukraine due to Russian military actions became a good Samaritan when he assisted a Pakistani student in Kyiv in reaching the Romanian border, where she was evacuated to her motherland.
Ankit Yadav, who recently returned from the conflict-torn Ukraine, told ANI that he assisted her in getting to the Pakistani consulate, from where she was flown back to her hometown.
“I met her at a bunker on the evening of February 24. I was the only Indian and she was the only Pakistani in that bunker which was filled with Ukrainians. Due to the language barrier, we could not speak to anybody else. With rising tensions in Ukraine, we decided to make a plan to flee the city. We had planned to leave on February 26, but a curfew was imposed and we failed in our first attempt, “Yadav said.
Yadav, who is studying at a Kyiv institute, described his trauma after arriving at the Delhi international airport, saying they were not allowed to leave the bunker due to continuous bombardment and Russian military actions.
He claimed that procuring food was a problem because Ukrainians ate largely non-vegetarian food and supplies were running out.
“When I requested, they allowed me to leave the bunker on February 27 to get a nasal spray. That is when I fled to my hostel with a curfew in place, cooked food for both of us and returned,” Yadav said. “With not enough food, on the night of February 27 we only consumed rice provided to us by the Ukrainians and slept,” he added.
On February 28 when curfew lifted, Yadav said they managed to flee the bunker and find a store to replenish their supplies and then began planning to leave the city.
“About that time she received a call from the Pakistani Embassy. When she told them that she was still in Kyiv and did not have any other person from her country with her, the officials of the embassy requested that I accompany her to the border for safety concerns,” he said.
