[NTDTV, Beijing, March 07, 2022]Russia continued its indiscriminate bombardment of Ukraine. The Chinese Embassy in Ukraine notified Chinese compatriots to “leave the country as soon as possible” on March 7. Before the war started, all countries were evacuating overseas Chinese, but only China did not. After the situation deteriorated, the CCP embassy announced a “chartered flight to evacuate overseas Chinese”, and then changed its tune and let the Chinese compatriots “self-evacuated”, but the best time to escape has been missed.
China’s slow evacuation of Chinese nationals puts Chinese students at risk that could have been avoided
The Chinese Embassy in Ukraine announced that the tension in Ukraine is still deteriorating and has a tendency to rise sharply, reminding Chinese compatriots in Ukraine to leave the country as soon as possible.
Long before the Russian invasion, countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States closed their embassies in Ukraine and urged their citizens to evacuate. However, the CCP not only delayed in issuing relevant reminders to Chinese citizens, but also accused the United States and Europe of hyping up the risk of war.
Two days after the war broke out, the CCP embassy announced the “chartered flight to evacuate overseas Chinese”, but then changed its tune, canceling the evacuation operation on the grounds of safety, and asking overseas Chinese and students to “evacuate themselves”.
As the situation in Ukraine deteriorates, people have lost the best time to evacuate and are plunged into crisis. Chinese students stranded in Ukraine continue to send out distress messages on the Internet.
The Voice of America said that the CCP’s slow evacuation of overseas Chinese has caused Chinese students and overseas Chinese to bear security risks that could have been avoided.
On March 2, Chinese authorities confirmed that a Chinese citizen was shot and wounded while evacuating Ukraine. A Chinese student said in a video released: “As we were leaving, seven or eight armored tanks from the Russian army came out and shot us. One person was shot.”
Ukraine’s third-largest news website Obozrevatel reported that on the evening of March 3, the Kharkiv Cultural Institute was bombed by Russian troops, killing several students, including “four Chinese students, two of whom have been identified as Jin. Tianhao (transliteration Jin Tianhao), Lizhi (transliteration Li Zhi)ā.
Chinese state media countered that it was “fake news”. However, the Epoch Times reporter found that the official media Global Times and a number of mainland websites have successively deleted relevant reports.
Chinese students stranded in Ukraine believed the news was true. Someone said in the WeChat group: “I must go back to China. Four people have been beaten to death.”
‘We lost the best time to save ourselves’
On March 3, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin claimed at a regular press conference that more than 3,000 Chinese citizens had been evacuated from Ukraine. Chinese media have previously reported that there are at least 6,000 Chinese citizens in Ukraine.
Chinese student Shen Yu (pseudonym) told the BBC on March 3 that in the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine, about 200 Chinese students were still trapped there and could not leave.
She said that the international students huddled together in small air-raid shelters to sleep every day, and food was in short supply. Some people have emotional breakdowns and are reluctant to accept outside information, and younger students cry incessantly.
Shen Yu said she had the opportunity to leave Ukraine in the weeks before the war broke out. At that time, a friend warned her of the high risk of war and invited her to seek refuge in another country, but she did not leave when she saw that the Chinese embassy did not issue a risk warning.
Shen Yu contacted the Chinese embassy again in early March and was told that they should evacuate on their own. However, the students were unable to leave. “Not only can we not evacuate, but we are also trapped here.”
“We believe in the motherland and the embassy, āābut the embassy’s actions make us unable to save ourselves,” Shen Yu said angrily, “We have lost the best time to save ourselves.”
She eagerly shouted to the embassy: “Please provide substantial help, at least tell us where is the safe route to evacuate?”
A Chinese student in Kharkov sent a distress message on WeChat: “Save us, I repeat, the embassy did not come to save us, now let us save ourselves, no matter what we are, what should the countless Chinese students in Kharkov do? ?”
At the same time, he accused Chinese media and the Internet of restricting Chinese students’ distress messages.
Wang Jixian, a Chinese national in Ukraine, told VOA that he had never been notified by the embassy and that the information on the embassy’s website was “self-evacuation.” Wang Jixian finally decided to stay in Odessa with his family and friends.
Airfare as high as 18,000 Chinese students have no money to return home
Chinese student Long Bai told VOA that after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the Chinese embassy still asked them to wait for notification. Long Bai finally evacuated by himself and came to Romania, but because “returning air tickets and quarantine fees have to be paid by himself” and “more expensive”, he does not plan to return to China at present.
According to the Ukrainian Odessa Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the chartered flight to China costs 17,999 yuan, and the charter flight and hotel quarantine costs are at your own expense. Some Chinese students who were evacuated to Romania could not accept the expensive air tickets, so they published a petition, hoping to reduce the cost of air tickets back home.
The “petition” said that 500 of them had survived all the hardships and fled to this point. The evacuation was very urgent, and many people simply did not have time to prepare sufficient funds, and of course some people simply could not afford the airfare.
Compared with China, India sent four transport planes after the war between Russia and Ukraine to evacuate Chinese nationals free of charge around the clock. As of March 2, more than 12,000 Indians have left Ukraine.
(Comprehensive report by reporter Luo Tingting/responsible editor: Fan Ming)
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