NEW DELHI, Feb 28: The union government on Monday decided to send four ministers to the neighbouring countries of the war-torn Ukraine to help better co-ordinate the evacuation of Indian nationals. The decision was taken at the third high-level meeting held on Ukraine in the last few days chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, It was decided that Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia will travel to Romania and Moldova, Law and Justice minister Kiren Rijiju to Slovakia, Housing and Urban Affairs and Petroleum and Natural Gas minister Hardeep Singh Puri to Hungary and Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways and Civil Aviation General V. K. Singh (retd.) to Poland.
While the Ministry of External Affairs has been running helplines and officials are posted at border checkpoints at Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova, the rush at these checkpoints, especially on the Poland-Ukraine border, has seen clashes there and a wait of two to three days in freezing temperatures before making a crossing. On Sunday evening, the Government of India announced that they had started a bus service to take Indian nationals through the checkpoints.
Sources in the government said while private airlines such as Indigo and SpiceJet had also announced evacuation flights, the presence of Ministers may help ease some of the paperwork required to complete the process. Political leaders across the board have written to Modi or have raised the issue of evacuation of Indian nationals from all over the country. Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba spoke to the Chief Secretaries of various States and asked District Collectors to contact family members of Indian nationals in Ukraine informed about the arrangements being made for evacuation.
Apart from the four ministers, the meeting on Monday was attended by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Minister of Commerce & Industry and Consumer Affairs & Food & Public Distribution and Textiles Piyush Goyal, PM’s Principal Secretary PK Mishra, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, and other senior officials.
Thousands of Indian students who were studying in Ukraine have been stuck in the country which was invaded by Russia last week. Many of those students reached the country’s borders with Poland and Romania, but have not been allowed to enter those nations. Several videos of some of those students, asking for help, have emerged on social media. They have been stuck in freezing temperatures, with limited food and water, and without any help. The government had identified an alternate train route to help evacuate the students, from Uzhhorod in western Ukraine to Budapest, Hungary’s capital city.
Admitting that the evacuation of Indian students at the border with Poland was “problematic” as thousands of people, including Ukrainians, are using that route, Shringla said on Sunday: “It is not an organised situation, it’s a conflict zone. Many of our people have been there for a long time and they are in a very difficult situation.” He added, “We fully empathise with them and we have been working round the clock to see what options we can provide. One of the options in the event we cannot make much progress into Poland, we come down to Uzhhorod and from there every two hours there is a train which leaves for Budapest, Hungary… This is an option we are recommending to our people.”
Indian students who are in conflict-hit Ukraine should try to move towards the western side of the country and stay in nearby towns and not reach the border directly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or MEA said on Monday. They should go to the border for crossing into neighbouring Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova only after coordinating with the authorities, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told reporters.
Over an estimated 8,000 Indians have left Ukraine since the MEA’s first advisory before Russia launched the attack on the east European nation, Bagchi said, adding so far 1,396 students have reached India in six evacuation flights under “Operation Ganga.” Three more flights are planned in the next 24 hours – two from Bucharest to Mumbai and Delhi, and one from Budapest to Delhi.
The MEA asked students and their parents not to panic about flight availability. “Flights are not the constraint. Please don’t get worried. Once you cross the Ukrainian border, we will ensure more flights. Our main concern is to ensure Indians are able to cross the Ukraine border safely,” Bagchi said. There is no curfew in the capital city Kyiv and people are allowed to get out from there, the MEA spokesperson said, adding Indians should go to Kyiv railway station from where they can take a train towards the western border. The Ukrainian authorities are running trains for free from Kyiv.
Though Russian and Ukrainian forces have fought in Kyiv, intense fighting first began in the eastern border with Russia where two breakaway areas have been recognised as independent by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Indians who are in eastern Ukraine should try to reach the western border if the situation allows, the MEA has said.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it is doing its best to facilitate passage of international students at the border, which “has become overwhelmed with the massive influx of people fleeing Russia’s armed aggression. As active fighting continues, we also believe it is more secure at this time for foreign students to stay at their places of residence in Ukraine. However, do not be misled by Russian disinformation. There is no discrimination based on the race or nationality, including when it comes to the crossing of the state border by foreign citizens,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
(Manas Dasgupta)
