‘We don’t want to be casualties’: Hundreds of students stranded in Ukraine plead for help
- With dwindling access to food, water and electricity, hundreds of foreign students in Sumy, Ukraine are calling out to the world for help
- Some students have been gathering water by melting snow and catching water that has fallen from the roofs of buildings
Shivangi Shibu was making a list of names Thursday evening of the hundreds of international students trapped in Sumy, Ukraine, when she looked out the window and saw the dark sky illuminate a bright yellow.
“Then we heard a loud sound. We just ran to bunkers,” said Shibu, a fifth-year student at Sumy State University originally from Patna, India.
Five minutes later, students were unable to send text messages on their phones, and the lift stopped working. The power had gone out.
“We thought that we would not be able to connect to world,” said Shibu, 25.
When the power returned Friday, she ran through the halls screaming with joy.
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Russian invasion makes heavy push to cut off supply lines in southern Ukraine
Shibu is one of hundreds of students stuck in Sumy, a city in northeast Ukraine. Russian tanks rolled into the area – about 50 kilometres from Russia – on February 24.