Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday confirmed that the evacuation process for Indian students stranded in the war-torn Ukrainian city of Sumy has started and they are being taken in buses to Poltava. Poltava is a city in central Ukraine.
“Last night, I checked with the control room, 694 Indian students were remaining in Sumy. Today, they have all left in buses for Poltava,” Puri told reporters in Delhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday discussed with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy ways to start the stalled evacuation of Indian students from Ukraine's besieged Sumy city that was being pummelled by the invading Russian forces.
Ukraine's foreign ministry accepted Russia's proposal for a ceasefire in Sumy to evacuate people on Tuesday. The ministry of foreign affairs tweeted “A humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians, including foreign students, from Sumy to Poltava has been agreed today. We call on Russia to uphold its ceasefire commitment, to refrain from activities that endanger the lives of people and to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid.”
The MFA said the corridor would be open until 9pm (local time). It specified people fleeing were permitted to take only the Sumy-Holubivka-Lokhvytsia-Lubny-Poltava route.
India has brought back over 17,100 of its nationals from Ukraine so far while Indian students remained stuck in the northeastern city of Sumy with their evacuation dependent on the facilitation of safe passage by Russian and Ukrainian authorities.
(With PTI inputs)
