When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide coronavirus quarantine on March 24, many Indian citizens around the world rushed to book tickets home. But with international passenger transportation suspended in many countries, thousands of Indians had no choice but to stay abroad.
In Ukraine alone, nearly 15,000 Indians are attending local universities, 95% of them studying medicine. When the quarantine began, no evacuation flights were organized from India to Kyiv and many students had to remain in Ukraine. They could try connecting flights, but most decided to avoid unnecessary risks.
On April 20, Modi’s government started to gradually lift restrictions, which had been praised by the World Health Organization as “tough and timely.” Many Indian students stuck abroad heaved a sigh of relief, hoping to return home soon. India seemed like a safe place to be: The nation of 1.3 billion people had seen only 40,000 COVID-19 cases and 1,500 deaths.
However, Indians students in Ukraine still don’t know when they can return home.
Meanwhile, they are struggling to pay rent and university tuition in Ukraine, facing language barriers and often living in dormitories with shared facilities — high-risk places where the virus can spread quickly.
Life at risk
When Saurav Kumar, a first-year student from India at Vinnytsia Medical University, heard about the quarantine in Ukraine, he did not want to leave the country.
Saurav had just started a new semester and didn’t expect that many countries would impose strict quarantine measures, closing international borders, banning public gatherings and canceling transportation.
Now stuck in Ukraine, where the number of COVID-19 cases is increasing by around 500 a day and the recovery ratio is low, Saurav has changed his mind – he’d like to go home.
Besides, it’s almost impossible to follow basic quarantine rules, including social distancing, in the dormitory where he lives with roommates and shares kitchen and bathroom facilities.
According to new quarantine rules, university dormitories should be disinfected every day. However, multiple students from different universities told the Kyiv Post that cleaners don’t come every day and, when they do, they don’t disinfect the rooms properly.
Saurav says many Ukrainians are also violating the lockdown. For international students like him, it is confusing why so many people are not wearing masks even after the government promised a fine of $630 for violating the quarantine regime.
“We are at a very high risk when we go outside to buy food and groceries,” Saurav told the Kyiv Post.
Struggling to pay
During the quarantine, students still have to pay rent and tuition fees. For some it has become extremely difficult.
Medical education in Ukraine is less expensive than in India or Europe, and many students live in dormitories that are affordably priced. But because of the lockdown, it has grown challenging for some to transfer money from abroad. Some students’ parents, who live in rural India, cannot easily access banking services and transfer money to their children, said Sushil Kumar, co-founder of the Wise education group, which helps Indians apply to Ukrainian universities.
Unable to receive a scholarship in Ukraine or work during the pandemic, many foreign students struggle to make ends meet. Some undergraduates have already been expelled from their universities for non-payment during the quarantine, Ukraine’s State Center for International Education told the Kyiv Post in an official statement.
Foreign students who rent apartments also have a hard time asking landlords to delay rent payments. One Indian student, who asked to remain anonymous because he feared retaliation by the agent who brought him to Ukraine as a student, told the Kyiv Post that he had to limit his expenditures on food and other essentials to cover the rent.
“We try to explain (the situation) to the (apartment) owners, but they do not understand and ask to pay,” the student said.
‘Panic virus’
Living abroad during the pandemic has proven to be a challenge on its own.
When the quarantine began in Ukraine, Indian students appealed to their government for help. Many posted videos complaining about the situation on social media, and the Indian media even interviewed some of them.
Indian students stranded in Ukraine talk about their problems on Indian English-language news channel India Ahead on March 29, 2020. They complain about the lack of food and protective equipment in their dormitories and ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi to evacuate them.
The students said that, in Ukraine, they lack food and protective equipment. Some even alleged that they were harassed by local authorities. Despite the suspension of international flights, the Indian students begged Modi to bring them home, as other countries did with their citizens.
Ukraine’s State Center for International Education confirmed that students from medical universities in Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk, cities in the country’s west, raised concerns about their safety after the first COVID-19 cases were detected near where they lived. Today, the oblasts in which these cities are located have disproportionately large numbers of COVID-19 cases.
The universities and educational agents later discussed the quarantine rules with students and provided them with masks and disinfectants.
No cases of physical harassment by the local authorities have ever been confirmed. Kumar from education group Wise said the students who claimed this were scared by the surge of COVID-19 cases in Ukraine and spread disinformation online to help draw attention to their predicament.
Studying under lockdown
For medical students in Ukraine, life is mostly about studying and preparing for final exams. But under the quarantine, it got confusing.
All medical undergraduates, including international students, have to pass the Krok exams to continue their studies. But the tests have been delayed because of the quarantine. Exams usually take place in April-June each year, but it is now unknown when this year’s exams will be held.
Another problem is that medical studies usually require lab work. That is impossible under distance learning.
Kuldeep Singh, an Indian student in his fifth and final year of studies at Kyiv Medical University of UAFM, told the Kyiv Post that universities provide students with online learning tools and explain the quarantine measures taken by the government.
However, since university classes have transferred online, it is impossible for students to obtain hands-on clinical experience.
“For a medical student, it is very difficult to deal with topics theoretically,” Kumar from Vinnytsia Medical University told the Kyiv Post.
Need for protection
The quarantine in India was scheduled to expire on May 3, but the government extended it for two more weeks, until May 17.
Meanwhile, it is still not clear when and how Indians across the world, including almost 1 million Indian students, will be able to return home.
On April 1, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Indian Ambassador to Ukraine Partha Satpathy agreed to ensure that the rights of those who couldn’t return home amid the quarantine were protected.
Foreigners in Ukraine whose visas expired during the quarantine won’t be fined as long as the restrictive measures are in place and for 30 days afterwards, Ukrianian authorities stated.
Kuleba separately promised to protect Indian students, albeit without announcing any concrete measures.
“Foreign students in Ukraine are an integral part of our society and require the same protection of their rights and freedoms as our compatriots,” he said.
