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After dayslong journey, international students finally escape Ukraine: 'It felt like a miracle'

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 felt like the first time in days.

“Finally, we were going home,” Shibu, 25, told USA TODAY after she returned home to Patna, India, last 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 or water after Russia launched its invasion.

The international students – Shibu estimated 700 students from India, 400 from Nigeria and others from Turkey and South Africa – found their way home last week after many days of travel by bus, train and plane throughout Ukraine and across borders.

Shibu, a fifth-year student, said that before the war began, students gathered what they could from nearly barren grocery store shelves but quickly ran out of food and water. They resorted to gathering water by melting snow and collecting roof runoff.

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Shivangi Shibu, 25, and other students from Sumy State University in Ukraine prepare to leave on a flight from Poland to India on Friday, March 11, 2022, after spending several days stranded without food, water or electricity.

Students turned to social media to plead for help, using the hashtag “SaveSumyStudents,” but limited access to electricity made calling attention to their plight 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, last 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 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 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 10 minutes on the road, they got word of Russian troops violating a cease-fire 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.

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. 

Olaniyan said he and other students were happy to receive food and blankets at the train station in Chop 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.’”

Students from Sumy State University in Ukraine rest after arriving in Poland via train from Lviv, Ukraine, on Friday, March 11, 2022.

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

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 cried 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 he can attend a school and continue studying medicine in Nigeria. He is 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 burst into tears.

“It was like a movie,"  Shibu said, "and we finally got our happy ending."

Shibu came home to a meal made by her mom – rice, lentils, potato curry and bread – the “most sumptuous, best food I can ever have on this planet.”

Then, she went to bed.

After having time to rest, Shibu told USA TODAY she knows the friends she left 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. … That's what worries me the most, thinking about them,” she said, the people we left behind.”

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