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Foreign Students Fleeing Ukraine Battle Racism, Extortion

Mohammad Rayyan Hamid (L), a student at Kyiv Medical University, poses with his friends in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Reuters)
Mohammad Rayyan Hamid (L), a student at Kyiv Medical University, poses with his friends in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Reuters)
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Foreign Students Fleeing Ukraine Battle Racism, Extortion

Mohammad Rayyan Hamid (L), a student at Kyiv Medical University, poses with his friends in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Reuters)
Mohammad Rayyan Hamid (L), a student at Kyiv Medical University, poses with his friends in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Reuters)

With the sound of shelling over overhead, Nigerian medical student John Adebisi has been trapped for nine days in a basement in the north-east Ukrainian town of Sumy, wracked by fear and without enough money or means to escape.

More than 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russian troops invaded on Feb. 24, but many more are stuck, particularly foreign students whose governments and families lack planes, cash or connections to get them out.

Racism makes it harder to flee, several students said, after watching social media videos of African, Asian and Middle Eastern travelers being assaulted by border guards and turned away from buses and trains while white people were let through.

"In terms of evacuation, we need a lot of money to pay for things because people are trying to extort us," Adebisi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that money transfer apps were not working and their cards had reached their withdrawal limits.

"Some students were charged up to $600 to get to the west of Ukraine ... we have heard there is racism at the borders, which is something we experienced even before the fighting broke out. Black students are treated differently," the 27-year-old said.

Thousands are estimated to have died in the biggest attack on a European state since 1945, which has led to a barrage of economic measures against Russia, and stoked fears of wider conflict in the West.

Ukraine's foreign ministry said on Twitter that there is no discrimination in crossing the border and a "first come first served approach applies to all nationalities".

But Tanmay, who is Indian, said Ukrainian guards abused his brother as he tried to leave Ukraine.

"A guard near the Polish border shoved my brother and tossed away his suitcase, yelling and screaming at him and his (friends) to go away," Tanmay said in interview from Delhi.

"My brother said ... the Ukrainian guards allow (white) people to go through ... The message was, 'If you're not white, your life doesn't matter'," said Tanmay, 24, who asked not to share his brother's name for his safety.

'No authorities'

Ukraine has been popular with foreign students who want a relatively cheap education overseas. Government data shows 76,000 students from 155 nations were enrolled in Ukrainian universities.

After an Indian student was killed by shelling on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the evacuation of his citizens with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Other nationals are less fortunate.

Syrian Orwa Staif was studying in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second biggest city, where bombing has left its center a wasteland of ruined buildings and debris.

Staif said he had to bribe the cashier to get him and three friends onto a train to the western city of Lviv, close to the Polish border.

The 24-year-old software engineering student said he hopes to travel "anywhere that is safe."

"It's complicated because we do not have an embassy in Ukraine and we have no authorities to ask for support," said Staif, whose country has been in crisis since insurgents tried to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in 2011.

'Traumatic experience'

With little government support, shuttered banks and empty cash machines, foreign nationals in Ukraine have come together to lend money and help each other out.

Afifa Maham, a medical student from Pakistan, said that 50 of them hired a private bus, each paying $50, to reach Shehyni, on the western border of Ukraine and Poland.

A journey that typically takes 2.5 hours took them 13 because of traffic jams and long queues at passport control.

"Short of 30 km, we saw a huge traffic jam. Our driver asked us to step out of the bus and walk to the border, carrying our heavy suitcases ... It was a traumatic experience," said Maham.

"When we reached the border, there was a massive crowd and there was lot of brawling and screaming. We were too scared to move further up to the gate," said Maham, who eventually entered Warsaw four days later with help of the Pakistani ambassador.

Ghassan Abdallah, 28, a Lebanese student at the Kharkiv National Medical University, said he spent $900 between trains, private cars and hotels to reach Romania. He then borrowed $1,300 from friends in Romania to fly home to Beirut.

Egyptian brothers and dentistry students Mohamed and Mahmoud Hossam also borrowed money from on friends in Kyiv - $680 to get bus tickets to the Polish border and then fly home to Cairo.

"If it were not for our friends here, we would not be able to make it," 22-year-old Mohamed said.

Dependent families

Getting out of Ukraine is only the first step.

Several Nigerian students who have made it to Poland and Hungary said they could not afford to go home - and the sacrifices their families made to send them to Ukraine meant they had to find a way to finish their degrees in Europe.

"My parents are farmers who grow cassava," Ehigiamusoe Godfrey, who was studying languages in Ukraine's eastern city of Dnipro with the hope of being able to support his parents after graduation.

"They sold everything to send me to study in Ukraine," Godfrey, 24, said by Whatsapp call from a church-funded hotel room in Lodz in central Poland, where he has food and accommodation for the next three days.

The Nigerian government plans to evacuate over 5,000 of its nationals from Poland, Hungary and Romania and on Thursday dispatched two planes to Warsaw.

"Some of us are waiting for the Nigerian government to arrange a flight, but we don't know when that will happen," said medical student Ogunnika Oluwanifemi who traveled by bus and train for four days from southeastern Ukraine to Hungary.

"Our parents back home took out loans to send us to Ukraine. How can we ask them (for money) when we know they are already in debt?" said Oluwanifemi, 20, whose parents run a small business in Nigeria's Ondo state.

Many are now dependent on the kindness of strangers.

Natalia Mufutau, who is Polish and married to a Nigerian, is mobilizing people in Poland to help stranded Africans.

"We are doing everything, from organizing buses to transport them and providing immigration information and translation at the border," Mufutau said by phone from the Finnish capital, Helsinki, where she lives.

"Some of their families can send them a little money, like about 25 euros ($28). But it's not enough for them to survive here so we are trying to raise funds so we can support them."

Meanwhile, Adebisi remains in his Sumy apartment with eight other Nigerian friends, hoping to eke out their funds until a safe evacuation strategy is in place.

"It is scary, we don't know what will happen in the next hour. We saw on social media that Africans have died trying to cross the border, from hypothermia and exhaustion," he said.

"We see photos of places we have visited in Ukraine now destroyed by bombs. This feeling is not something I would wish on anybody."

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Features

In Assad's Hometown, Few Shared in His Family's Fortune. They Hope they Won't Share in His Downfall

A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)
A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)
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In Assad's Hometown, Few Shared in His Family's Fortune. They Hope they Won't Share in His Downfall

A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)
A defaced portrait of ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on the wall of a building in the capital Damascus on December 17, 2024. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP)

On the walls of the palatial mausoleum built to house the remains of former Syrian President Hafez Assad, vandals have sprayed variations of the phrase, “Damn your soul, Hafez.”
Nearly two weeks after the ouster of his son, Bashar Assad, people streamed in to take photos next to the burned-out hollow where the elder Assad’s grave used to be. It was torched by opposition fighters after a lightning offensive overthrew Assad's government, bringing more than a half-century rule by the Assad dynasty to an end, The Associated Press said.
The mausoleum's sprawling grounds — and the surrounding area, where the ousted president and other relatives had villas — were until recently off limits to residents of Qardaha, the former presidential dynasty's hometown in the mountains overlooking the coastal city of Latakia.
Nearby, Bashar Assad’s house was emptied by looters, who left the water taps running to flood it. At a villa belonging to three of his cousins, a father and his two young sons were removing pipes to sell the scrap metal. A gutted piano was tipped over on the floor.
While the Assads lived in luxury, most Qardaha residents — many, like Assad, members of the Alawite minority sect — survived on manual labor, low-level civil service jobs and farming to eke out a living. Many sent their sons to serve in the army, not out of loyalty to the government but because they had no other option.
“The situation was not what the rest of the Syrian society thought,” said Deeb Dayoub, an Alawite sheikh. “Everyone thought Qardaha was a city built on a marble rock and a square of aquamarine in every house," he said, referring to the trappings of wealth enjoyed by Assad's family.
In the city’s main street, a modest strip of small grocery stores and clothing shops, Ali Youssef, stood next to a coffee cart, gesturing with disdain. “This street is the best market and the best street in Qardaha and it’s full of potholes.”
Families resorted to eating bread dipped in oil and salt because they could not afford meat or vegetables, he said. Youssef said he dodged mandatory military service for two years, but eventually was forced to go.
“Our salary was 300,000 Syrian pounds,” a month, he said — just over $20. “We used to send it to our families to pay the rent or live and eat with it" while working jobs on the side to cover their own expenses.
"Very few people benefited from the former deposed regime,” Youssef said.
So far, residents said, the security forces made up of fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — the main group in the coalition that unseated Assad, and which is now ruling the country — have been respectful toward them.
“The security situation is fine so far, it’s acceptable, no major issues,” said Mariam al-Ali, who was in the market with her daughter. “There were a few abuses ... but it was fixed.” She did not elaborate, but others said there had been scattered incidents of robberies and looting or threats and insults.
Al-Ali called Assad a “traitor,” but she remained circumspect about her Alawite community's position in the new Syria.
“The most important thing is that there should be no sectarianism, so there will be no more blood spilled,” she said.
Dayoub, the Alawite sheikh, described “a state of anticipation and caution among all citizens in this area, and in general among Alawites,” although he said fears have started to ease.
At the town’s municipal building, dozens of notables sat on bleachers discussing the country' s new reality and what they hoped to convey to the new leadership.
Much was centered around economic woes — retired public servants' salaries had not been paid, the price of fuel had risen, there was no public transportation in the area.
But others had larger concerns.
“We hope that in the next government or the new Syria, we will have rights and duties like any Syrian citizen — we are not asking for any more or less,” said Jaafar Ahmed, a doctoral student and community activist. “We don’t accept the curtailment of our rights because the regime was part of this component.”
Questions also loomed about the fate of the area's sons who had served in Assad's army.
Since the army's collapse in the face of the opposition advance, residents said several thousand young army recruits from Qardaha have gone missing. Some later turned up on lists of former soldiers being held at a detention center in Hama.
“These are young guys who are 22 or 23 and they never took part" in active combat, said Qais Ibrahim, whose nephews were among the missing. Over the past few years, active combat was largely frozen in the country's civil war. “We send our children to the army because we don’t have any other source of income.”
Um Jaafar, who gave only her nickname out of fear of reprisals, said the family had no information about the fate of her two sons, stationed with the army in Raqqa and Deir Ezzour, though one son's name later turned up on the list of those imprisoned in Hama.
“My children got the best grades in school, but I didn’t have the ability to send them to the university,” she said. “They went to the army just for a salary that was barely enough to cover their transportation costs.”
Syria's new authorities have set up “reconciliation centers” around the country where former soldiers can register, hand over their weapons and receive a “reconciliation ID” allowing them to move freely and safely in Syria for three months.
But Ahmed, the doctoral student, said he wants more. As the country attempts to unify and move on after nearly 14 years of civil war, he said, “We want either forgiveness for all or accountability for all.”
Ahmed acknowledged that during the war, “rural Latakia was responsible for some radical groups,” referring to pro-Assad militias accused of widespread abuses against civilians. But, he said, opposition groups also committed abuses.
“We hope that there will be either an open process of reconciliation ... or transitional justice in which all will be held accountable for their mistakes, from all parties," he said.
"We can’t talk about holding accountable one ... group but not another.”