South African medical students, who were evacuated from Ukraine, are now looking for ways to complete their studies. South African universities are discussing options for students, some of whom are still reeling from the attacks they witnessed and fear for teachers and classmates left behind.
Concerned students have already launched a “Save Our Studies” campaign with the aim of helping some 50 repatriated medical students find places at South African universities.
Twenty-five-year-old Mandisa Malindisa, a fourth-year medical student studying at Kharkiv National Medical University, is one of those who wants to be placed.
His studies were interrupted when Russian forces entered Ukraine in late February.
She says that following a few days of hearing bombs in Kharkiv, a city in northeastern Ukraine, she and five friends decided to flee by train to the Hungarian border.
The scene at the train station, he says, was pure chaos.
Everyone is losing their minds. Everybody is trying to get it. People have knives. People are screaming. People are fighting. People are biting each other. You know, I’m just trying to get on this train. We were looking, we were just looking. Because we were like this, this is not our train. This train goes to kyiv. This is not for us,” Malindisa recalled.
Finally, a train arrived that would take them to Lviv, in western Ukraine, but to their horror, it stopped in kyiv, a place they had hoped to avoid because it is a high-risk area. They waited there for six hours.
“When we saw what kyiv really looks like, everything was on fire. There is smoke. Everyone was looking out the window in terror,” Malindisa said.
After 24 hours they reached Lviv and Malindisa headed for Hungary, where she managed to book a flight home.
Sixth-year medical student Luphumlo Ntengu also hopes to continue his studies in South Africa. He was studying at the Vinnytsia National Medical University in Ukraine. Safe in his home now in South Africa, he says he often thinks of those he left behind.
“Yeah, I’m really worried regarding my friends and my teacher, you know? Ukraine has been my home for the last six years, they are like family to me. So, everything that is happening there is very sad. Right now, it feels like my own house is being destroyed like that,” Ntengu said.
The chairman of the South African Committee of Medical Deans, Professor Lionel Green-Thompson, confirmed that schools are discussing ways to help returnee students.
“Issues relating to students in the [sic] Ukraine have been brought to the attention of the South African Committee of Medical Seniors. We have started conversations on this issue. The answers are complex and we continue to discuss these things,” Green-Thompson said.
But finding places can be troublesome. The professor noted that many other South African students who returned due to the COVID-19 pandemic have also been seeking placement.