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Arab Students Stranded in Ukraine Desperate to Go Home

Thousands of Arab students in Ukrainian universities, who were trapped by the Russian invasion, have been left with little chouce but to seek refugee in basement bomb shelters like this one in Kyiv Sergei CHUZAVKOV AFP
Thousands of Arab students in Ukrainian universities, who were trapped by the Russian invasion, have been left with little chouce but to seek refugee in basement bomb shelters like this one in Kyiv Sergei CHUZAVKOV AFP
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Arab Students Stranded in Ukraine Desperate to Go Home

Thousands of Arab students in Ukrainian universities, who were trapped by the Russian invasion, have been left with little chouce but to seek refugee in basement bomb shelters like this one in Kyiv Sergei CHUZAVKOV AFP
Thousands of Arab students in Ukrainian universities, who were trapped by the Russian invasion, have been left with little chouce but to seek refugee in basement bomb shelters like this one in Kyiv Sergei CHUZAVKOV AFP

Thousands of young Arabs who took up studies in Ukraine are appealing to be rescued from a new nightmare -- Russia's full scale invasion of the country.

More than 10,000 Arab students attend university in Ukraine.

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's 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 don't 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.

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NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
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NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)

NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile that escalated the nearly 33-month-old war.

The conflict is “entering a decisive phase,” Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday, and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.”

Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session as security was tightened following Thursday's Russian strike on a military facility in the city of Dnipro.

In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech to his nation that the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was retaliation for Kyiv’s use of US and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Putin said Western air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov kept up Russia's bellicose tone on Friday, blaming “the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries” in supplying weapons to Ukraine to strike Russia.

"The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns were not taken into account have also been quite clearly outlined," he said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the European Union, echoed Moscow's talking points, suggesting the use of US-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely requires direct American involvement.

“These are rockets that are fired and then guided to a target via an electronic system, which requires the world’s most advanced technology and satellite communications capability,” Orban said on state radio. “There is a strong assumption ... that these missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of American personnel.”

Orban cautioned against underestimating Russia’s responses, emphasizing that the country’s recent modifications to its nuclear deployment doctrine should not be dismissed as a “bluff.” “It’s not a trick... there will be consequences,” he said.

Separately in Kyiv, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský called Thursday's missile strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe.”

At a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Lipavský also expressed his full support for delivering the necessary additional air defense systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks.”

He underlined that the Czech Republic will impose no limits on the use of its weapons and equipment given to Ukraine.

Three lawmakers from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, confirmed that Friday's previously scheduled session was called off due to the ongoing threat of Russian missiles targeting government buildings in central Kyiv.

In addition, there also was a recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and nongovernmental organizations "in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said.

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the Oreshnik missile, whose name in Russian means “hazelnut tree,” was fired from the Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in Russia’s Astrakhan region, and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. The missile had six nonnuclear warheads each carrying six submunitions and reached a spoeed of Mach 11, it said.

Test launches of a similar missile were conducted in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said. The Pentagon confirmed the missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.

Thursday's attack struck the Pivdenmash plant that built ICBMs when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The military facility is located about 4 miles (6 1/2 kilometers) southwest of the center of Dnipro, a city of about 1 million that is Ukraine’s fourth-largest and a key hub for military supplies and humanitarian aid, and is home to one of the country’s largest hospitals for treating wounded soldiers from the front before their transfer to Kyiv or abroad.

The stricken area was cordoned off and out of public view. With no fatalities reported from the attack, Dnipro residents resorted to dark humor on social media, mostly focused on the missile’s name, Oreshnik.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia struck a residential district of Sumy overnight with Iranian-designed Shahed drones, killing two people and injuring 13, the regional administration said..

Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the drones were stuffed with shrapnel elements. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.