TUNIS —
Thousands of young Arabs who took up studies in Ukraine, often fleeing violence
back home, are appealing to be rescued from a new nightmare – Russia’s full
scale invasion of the country.
اضافة اعلان
More than 10,000
Arab students attend
university in Ukraine, drawn to the former Soviet republic by a low cost of
living and, for many, the lure of relative safety compared with their own
troubled homelands.
Many have criticized their governments for
failing to take concrete measures to repatriate them, and sought refuge in
basements or the metro system. Few dared to cross the border into neighboring
Poland or Romania in search of sanctuary.
“We left Iraq to escape war... but it is the
same thing in
Ukraine (now),” Ali Mohammed, an Iraqi student told AFP by
telephone from the western city of Chernivtsi.
Mohammed said he has been calling the Iraqi
embassy in Kyiv around a dozen times a day since Russia launched the invasion
but no one has picked up.
“We are demanding to go home. We are waiting
to be rescued,” he said. According to an Iraqi government official, there are
5,500 Iraqis in Ukraine, 450 of them students.
Syrian Raed Al-Moudaress, 24, echoed him.
“I arrived in Odessa only six months ago,
hoping to open a new page far away from war,” he told AFP by telephone.
“I am lost. I do not know what to do,” he said,
adding he is spending most of his time hiding in a basement.
Among Arab countries, Morocco has the
largest number of students in Ukraine, with around 8,000 enrolled in
universities, followed by
Egypt with more than 3,000.
“We demand solutions. The authorities must
find us a solution,” to get back home to Morocco, Majda tweeted when the
invasion began on Thursday.
“What are you waiting for? This is World War
III,” she said, addressing authorities in her country, who announced measures
the following day.
Hundreds of students from Lebanon, gripped
by a financial crisis the World Bank says is one of the world’s worst in modern
times, are also trapped in the country.
“The (Beirut) authorities have not issued
guidelines” for our evacuation, said Samir, 25.
“I left Lebanon because of the financial
crisis, sold my car and took my small savings to study in Ukraine,” he told AFP
from Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, near the Russian border.
Ali Chreim, a restaurant owner from Kyiv who
heads the Lebanese expat community in Ukraine, said he has been helping a group
of young Lebanese women, who have sought shelter in the capital’s metro, by
sending them food.
Before the invasion, 1,300 Lebanese students
were studying in the country. Half managed to flee by their own means, but the
rest are stuck, Chreim said. Beirut set up a hotline but it only functions
“intermittently”, he added.
Lebanese Foreign Minister
Abdallah Bou Habib said the government was drawing up plans to help nationals trapped in Ukraine.
Planes will be sent to neighboring Poland
and Romania at a “date to be announced later”, he said.
Other countries like Egypt have also pledged
to organize repatriation flights from neighboring countries. But for Tunisia
which does not have an embassy in Ukraine, getting in touch with its 1,700
citizens there is complicated.
Authorities said they had been in contact
with international organizations such as the Red Cross to organize departures.
“We will begin the operation as soon as we
have a full list of how many Tunisians wish to return home,” foreign ministry
official Mohammed Trabelsi told AFP.
Despairing students have posted video
footage online pleading for help.
“The supermarket shelves are empty, the
streets have become dangerous. The embassy must help us get out of here,” said
two pharmacy students from Egypt stuck in the
Black Sea port of Odessa.
Other Egyptian students took matters into
their own hands and crossed the border into
Poland, hoping to make it back
home.
Oil-rich
Algeria, which has strong military links with Russia, did not ask its 1,000
nationals in Ukraine to leave. Algerian authorities have, however, urged them
to stay indoors and only venture out “in case of an emergency”.
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