“There’s someone standing with a gun outside our apartment”: Indian student stranded in Ukraine narrates chilling experience
by Sudipto MaityAn Indian student, who was stranded in Ukraine after the Russian invasion, shared chilling details of his stay at the time of the ongoing war.
Rupam Mondal, a foreign student at the Kharkiv National Medical University in the eponymous city, shot a video of himself and his surroundings, capturing the grim situation that prevailed in war-torn Ukraine.
A resident of Jhargram district of West Bengal in eastern India, Rupam has been studying at the Ukrainian university since 2018. He is one among the thousands of stranded students who have been evacuated by the Indian government under its Mission Ganga programme. However, before his return, Rupam witnessed the battle upclose.
In a video shot on February 27, the student narrates his chilling experience. “We are sitting quietly. There is firing outside,” Rupam narrates in Bengali, his mother tongue, while hiding at the bunker of his apartment. Speaking in a hushed tone, he adds, “There are people opening fire outside our building. We are sitting quietly.”
His voice is mixed with fear and disappointment in equal measure.
Another visual showed a gun-toting man on the pavement. The man crouches and takes position to fire.
Rupam further says, “Someone is standing outside our bunker with guns at all times. We are hiding on the other side of the exit.”
The Indian student narrated his horrific experience in an exclusive chat with Newslions.
“We would only come up to cook our food and at times, we would have to rush back in the middle of cooking as the sirens would ring,” Rupam says.
“I was still lucky as my apartment had a bunker. There are many I know who had to hide in the metro.”
Fortunately, Rupam had been evacuated and has been reunited with his family in West Bengal. Unfortunately, like many, he too is staring at a dark tunnel, waiting for the war to end and peace to return in Europe. He still has a degree to obtain and an oath to keep.