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All Lankan students have left Ukraine; those in Belarus offered assistance: Foreign Ministry
All Sri Lankan students have left war-torn Ukraine with the final batches crossing the borders to reach neighbouring countries such as Poland, Foreign Ministry officials said.
They said the ministry early this week set in motion a programme to evacuate Sri Lankans, especially students, stranded not only in Ukraine, but also in Russia and Belarus.
They said no special aircraft were being organised for the evacuation programme as there were no Sri Lankans in active conflict areas. Some 17 Sri Lankans left Ukraine before the conflict began 11 days ago and 32 more Sri Lankans were evacuated in coordination with Sri Lankan missions in Ankara and Warsaw. They were evacuated via the Polish border.
“The Foreign Ministry is simply facilitating the repatriation process, offering administrative and logistical support, while the travel expenses were borne by the families here,” a foreign ministry source noted.
In a statement, the ministry called on Sri Lankans stranded in the three countries to contact the closest Sri Lankan missions to obtain assistance.
Tharushi Fernando, a first-year medical student at Vitebsk State Medical University in Belarus told the Sunday Times the Sri Lankan embassy in Moscow was keeping in touch with her. “We’re actually safe here because the Belarusian borders are well protected; so we’re doing our day-to-day work and studies as usual,” she noted.
Belarus supports Russia’s invasion and has allowed its territory to be used by Russian troops to move into Ukraine through north. The European Union slapped new sanctions against Belarus for its supporting role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, effectively banning about 70% of all imports from that country.
The Sri Lankan Embassy in Moscow said it was in contact with Belarusian universities where some 1,500 Sri Lankan students are studying.
A Sri Lankan medical student in Belarus said his university was reluctant to grant permission to leave. “So if we leave now we’ll have to pay for this semester again and retake the coursework,” he noted.
After several meetings between embassy officials, university administrators, student groups, and parents, the Sunday Times learns that a provisional decision has been taken to allow students to return to Sri Lanka, if they wish to.
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