As Shivangi Shibu watched her fellow students goof off, pushing each other in line at an airport in Poland, she let out a carefree laugh for what she felt like the first time in days.
“Finally, we were going home,” Shibu, 25, told USA TODAY after she returned home to Patna, India, this weekend. “You could feel the excitement. It felt like a miracle.”
Shibu and hundreds of Sumy State University students living in the school’s six hostels had been trapped in a northeastern Ukrainian city for about two weeks with little food and water after Russia launched its invasion.
The international students — Shibu estimates about 700 students from India, 400 from Nigeria and others from countries including Turkey and South Africa — eventually found their way home over the course of last week and weekend after many days of travel by bus, train and plane throughout Ukraine and across borders.
Before the war began, Shibu, a fifth-year student, said students gathered what they could from nearly barren grocery store shelves but quickly ran out of food and water. They then spring to gather water by melting snow and collecting runoff from the roof.
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Students had turned to social media to plead for help, using the hashtag “SaveSumyStudents.” But with limited access to electricity, calling attention to their plight was also difficult.
“We never had a plan, and every method of communication was lost, I couldn’t communicate with my parents,” said Samuel Olaniyan, a fourth-year student who returned to Oyo State, Nigeria, this weekend. “I couldn’t communicate with my family here in Nigeria, so it was very, very scary.”
The students’ journey began Wednesday morning when they left Sumy on a bus to travel about 100 miles south to Poltava. They then caught a 17-hour train west across the country to Lviv, which is near the Polish border.
From there, they traveled hundreds of miles more to get home — an exhausting journey marked by border crossings, strenuous train and bus rides, and anxiety over their safety.
The journey came after days of struggling to leave Sumy that Shibu said left many students hopeless over whether help would come in time. When she lost faith, Shibu said she’d think about her mother de ella waiting for her in India.
“That was my hope — that I need to go and meet her,” Shibu said. “For her, I cannot lose hope.”
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After a failed attempt to leave, a window for escape
When a bus arrived for them early last week, the students thought they found their way home. But after just 10 minutes on the road, they got word of Russian troops violating the ceasefire that was meant to allow civilians to escape. The bus turned back.
Shibu said she felt like crying. When she returned to the hostel, she couldn’t eat and instead went straight to sleep.
“It felt like everything was finished,” she said. “Every time there was some hope, it was gone again.”
Other students turned to taxi drivers, who offered alternative rides out of the city for exorbitant prices, Olaniyan said.
Later that week, with help from the Indian embassy and Sumy State University, buses arrived again.
It wasn’t until 15 hours later when they arrived in Lviv and boarded a train for Poland that Shibu finally felt she could relax.
“After every few kilometers, I was like ‘Is this going to fail?’” she said. “We could not believe that it was happening.”
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Exhausting train rides to safety
Olaniyan, 20, took a 13-hour train ride from Poltava to Lviv. It was taxing, he said, as he and other Nigerian students were hungry and exhausted. Some evacuees fainted on the train and had to be treated by doctors. Olaniyan said he relied on the water and snacks he packed.
“We couldn’t find a way to sit down, so we had to sit down on our bags,” he said of the crowded train. “Some people stood and I sat on my bag for that 13 hours of the journey.”
After arriving in Lviv, Olaniyan took a two-hour bus ride to Chop, a city on the border of Slovakia and Hungary, where he boarded a train to Budapest with other Nigerian students. The Nigerian government helped them secure transportation.
Then, the final leg of his journey: a six-hour flight from Hungary to Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, before another flight to the southwestern city of Ibadan on Saturday — more than four days after he left Sumy.
At the train station in Chop, Olaniyan said he and other students were happy to receive food and blankets to finally feel comfortable.
“We were received very very warmly, which was a very good thing,” he said.
After Shibu’s 15-hour journey from Sumy to Poltava to Lviv, the students returning to India piled onto a train waiting for them. That’s when it finally set in for Shibu that she was going home.
“All I could think was ‘Yes, we made it.’”
Once in Poland, Shibu feasted on French fries, chicken, rice and vegetables, potatoes and peas, and bread — her first full meal in several days.
A warm welcome home
On Saturday in Ibadan, Nigeria, the sound of talking drums filled the airport terminal as Olaniyan disembarked from his flight, overwhelmed with emotion.
His brother played the drums to celebrate his safe return. His grandmother and aunts raised and hugged him.
In an interview with USA TODAY over the phone, Olaniyan was at a loss for words describing how many family members gathered at his arrival. He said he felt overwhelmed trying to greet them all.
“I was so relieved. I was so excited when I reached my family,” he said. “It is a comforting feeling when you see family, see those that love you, that was like the best experience ever. I’m just really really grateful.”
Olaniyan said he hopes to get his transcript transferred from Sumy State so that he can attend a school and continue studying medicine in Nigeria. He is also exploring possible refugee education programs in Europe as well.
Shibu also faced a warm homecoming Friday when she arrived at the airport in Delhi, India. She got off the plane and was immediately surrounded by politicians and journalists.
But she was searching for her parents.
When they finally locked eyes, her parents immediately burst into tears.
“It was like a movie,” Shibu said, “and we finally got our happy ending.”
Shibu came home to a meal mad by her mom – rice, lentils, potato curry and bread – the “most sumptuous, best food I can ever have on this planet.”
Then, she immediately went to bed.
After having time to rest, Shibu told USA TODAY that she knows the friends she left behind in Ukraine are far away from the happy ending she was lucky to get.
“Ukraine was a second home,” Shibu said.
“… I hope that those people who I love in Ukraine are doing good,” she added. “…That’s what worries me the most, thinking about them, the people we left behind.”
www.usatoday.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism