ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of Pakistani students stranded in Ukraine urged Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday to make arrangements for their evacuation “on priority” as Russia launched a military attack on the Eastern European country in its neighborhood.
Russian President Vladimir Putin asked Ukrainian armed forces to lay down their arms in a televised address before ordering his troops to launch an invasion by land, air and sea earlier in the day.
The war was triggered in the region while Pakistan’s prime minister was visiting Moscow and was scheduled to hold a meeting to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries with the Russian president.
Speaking to Arab News, students said they had been asked by their university officials to leave their apartments and move to underground metro stations to ensure their safety.
“We were living in our apartments but received instructions from our university administration to shift to metro stations,” Maas Hassan, who is enrolled in Kharkiv National Medical University in the Ukraine's northeast, said. “No one is listening to us and we appeal the Pakistani government and Prime Minister Imran Khan to arrange our evacuation on priority.”
Hassam said thousands of people had taken shelter in the metro station to save themselves from Russian shelling.
“We are around 700 Pakistani students in Kharkiv and about 15 have returned to their country,” Ali Hamza, a first-year medical student from Jhang, said. “All other are still stranded here.”
Pakistan’s ambassador to Kiev, Maj. Gen. Noel Israel Khokhar, said all Pakistani nationals in Ukraine were safe and the embassy was working on their evacuation.
“On our advice, many Pakistanis had already left the country,” he told Arab News. “Only a few students are left behind and we are making arrangements for their safe and secure evacuation from Ukraine.”
“We have asked all students who could not go out of Ukraine to gather at a safe place in Ternopil city [in the western part of the country] and our counselor assistant is also in contact with them,” the envoy added. “We will then work things out from there after assessing the situation.”
However, a Pakistani student Munam Khan said the embassy was not cooperating with the students.
“Our embassy is not cooperating with us at all,” he told Arab News. “A few weeks ago, they told us they would arrange special PIA flights for us if the war broke out, but nothing is being done now.”
Khan accused the country’s diplomatic mission in Kiev of “misleading people” while informing them about the evacuation situation from Ukraine.
“Over here, they tell us that Pakistani embassy is not so rich to take care of all of us,” he added.
Husnain Ali from Chakwal also complained embassy officials were neither taking phone calls nor contacting stranded Pakistani citizens on their own.
“We called our embassy but they did not pick up our phone or contact us back,” he said, adding that the embassy had asked students to move to Ternopil near the Polish border through a Facebook post.
“It is impossible for us to go there as all transportation services are closed due to curfew,” Ali added. “Besides, it will require us ten hours of travel to get there. We are very scared and our families are also worried about our safety. They have asked us to get any chartered flight but all things are closed over here.”
