My Ukrainian War Experience

On the 28th , February 2022 was going to be like every other Monday, woke up by 8:14 am, and everyone in the hostel had their bags packed, a it was very confusing for me, I ran back to my room taped my elder brother who was laying down on the bed and ask him what was going on he said, there was a bomb blast not too far from here and Russia invasion has commenced, we sat down on the bed and stared for a while, I think at that point, we were both weighing our options and what to do next because clearly parking our bags and rushing to the buss station without a plan, knowing where to go or where was safest place, would have been an ignorant mistake because First off we were black men, as civilized as the world is today being black in a situation like this, In a white man country isn’t exactly a terrific thing. we wouldn’t be given a chance to get on the train, secondly the stampede kill lots of Ukrainians who were trying to get on the free train to liviv ( a city in west of Ukraine) some were killed by shillings and missile on the Road trying to get to the border of Poland then I thought of where we would go after got out of the city or after we got out Ukraine.. clearly going back to Nigeria with out a degree.. with out anything but our life’s , yes when there is life there is hope but if we go to Nigeria the way things are there, we didn’t want to risk going there. We decide to wait for a while until things claim down before moving any where, we also weigh the option of joining the Ukrainian army even if as war medics because president zelensky said anyone who wishes to fight with us would be given a gun. 10mins latter there was a missile blast were told to move down to the bomb shelter, we quickly parked our bags going to the bomb shelter, when we got there ...about an hour latter, we got to the bomb shelter, getting there it was a like a dirty underground basement, little air to go around, it smelled and it was scramped with So many students in my school and from different nationalities, Indians, Chinese, Tanzanians, Rwanda, Nigerians, Ghanaians Arabs and other nations, regardless we were all glade to be safe even tho, this place was sickening yet at a time it felt like the safest place in the world, 2hrs Checking my bag to see if I carried enough water or food Incase, we would be there for a day or two, the school agent’s in charge of our hostel’s who brought us to the shelter ask for our documents , I check for my passport it was missing from my bag. On top of being in a grim situation, I found myself with out a means of identification except for my permanently resident permit given to me by the Ukrainian government as a student ( which called posvika), my situation went from worse to terrible quickly.

Next Day we were told to get ready that we could move at any time when the fighting clams down, mind you by clam down , means when you only hear missiles and shelling, shooting sounds every 3-4 hour’s , by the next day we already understood That this was going to be our new normal and we had lost all hope of the fight stopping any time soon because war only stops, when one side is victorious or the human casualties becomes too much. The fear and tension kept rising as we all went back to our hostel’s. I searched for my passport but to no avail I couldn’t find it ... 2hrs in our hostel, next thing we heard was an alarm instructing us to go underground to the bomb shelter. We spent the night there, with Little food in our stomach and water. By the third all the Africans and more than half of the Nigerians parked their bags and we’re on their way to take their chances at the border to Poland and different neighboring countries, little did they know that this journey would be the most difficult one they ever embarked on in their lives. Later that day the power would go off because of the Fighting, the Ukrainian government had to put out the power in other to see, in coming air hostilities at night, ( that’s what we were told) by the end of the day all our phones were down, when it’s winter, phone battery life depletes quickly.

The forth day we were only 11 African students in the hostel ( hostel 11) 10 Nigerians, 1 Uganda, early that morning, the Uganda had taken a buss to ternopil ( a city west of Ukraine) to go join up with the rest of his country men who were planning to live Ukraine soon, by the end of the day were only 10 Nigerians in the school, so we taught. At this point there was no light, no heater to keep us warm, no way to connect home and the most part is our food supplies were almost finished, the first day of the invasion people bought all the supplies in the supermarket, I had to go do a supply run for me and my elder brother and see how we can withdraw cash, paper money was the only form of money transaction being accepted for anything because of the war. I went out that day in search of were to buy food and charge our phones, I went with an Indian student in the mist of all this there was still fighting around and you could hear the shelling, shooting, tanks and fighter jets despite these terrifying sounds around we still were determined to get food and a place away from my school were we could charge our phones, plus we all had a talk with my elder sister who reasoned with us as to why we should live Ukraine irrespective of me not having an international , now more than ever we needed to charge our batteries full and get supplies for journey because we we’re 10 of us traveling the next day.