Pakistani Students Caught In Middle Of Ukraine Crisis
The Pakistani embassy in Ukraine said on Saturday that it had safely evacuated 1,476 Pakistani nationals and students stranded in the conflict zone, with nine more on the way. It added that efforts were afoot to evacuate the remaining 37 students, reported Dawn.
However not everyone was convinced by the rhetoric. “The successful evacuation by our government is fake news!” said Arshad, when asked about the embassy’s claims, dismissing them completely.
While the Indian Government launched Operation Ganga to evacuate its citizens from Ukraine amid escalating tensions with Russia, the Pakistani Government’s apathy towards its students left them in the middle of the war. Many Pakistani students recounted their harrowing journeys out of Ukraine on their own, without the help of its government, reported Dawn.
Disappointed by the behaviour of the Pakistani embassy, Misha Arshad, a final year student at the National Aerospace University in Kharkiv said “they did nothing” to help us evacuate. “We are the future of Pakistan and this is how they treated us in this difficult time,” she lamented. She managed to flee the city amid artillery fire and rocket attacks.
Arshad was among the over 76,000 international students from 155 nations studying in various universities across Ukraine because of its low tuition and cost of living. Of these, nearly 25 per cent were from India, while the rest were from Morocco, Turkmenistan, Nigeria, China and Pakistan, according to the University World News.
Afifa Maham, a third-year student at Ternopil National Medical University, who managed to reach Warsaw after several days of uncertainty, also felt let down by the Pakistani embassy in Ukraine.
“Our ambassador did nothing to help us!” said Maham.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Basit Hamid, a Lahore-based businessman, whose 21-year old son, Rayyan Hamid, was studying dentistry at Kyiv Medical University, reported Dawn.
“I blame our ambassador in Ukraine who did not have the foresight to evacuate Pakistani students earlier when war clouds were looming. Was he sleeping? Did he not understand when other embassies — US and UK and Canada — were telling their people to leave?” questioned the father. “He kept telling them to stay put and focus on studies,” he added.
On the other hand , the Pakistan embassy in Lviv has claimed that it was even helping Indian students, the foreign ministry said. Commenting on a video clip doing the rounds showing Indian students being fed by the Pakistani embassy, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said: “They are in distress due to war” and the Pakistan embassy helped them “on a humanitarian basis”.
