14 May 2020 12:00 am
Sri Lankan students studying in Russia at Tver State Medical University sought to return to Sri Lanka given the alarming corona situation in that country.
Tver, a city situated close to Moscow with the highest density of student population has around 350 Sri Lankan students studying.
These students said in a statement, “There have been 177160 cases of COVID-19 infections reported in Russia so far and 1625 deaths. (11231 new COVID-19 infections were reported yesterday) 769 COVID-19 patients have been reported so far in Tver.
The number of new cases being confirmed in Russia per day exceeded 10000 during the past few days making Russia the fifth most-affected country in terms of infected patients in the world. By today, the number of new cases being confirmed in Russia per day is second only to USA.
Even though we follow sanitary measures, since our hostel is open with many students from different countries residing there and with shared sanitary facilities, we are at risk of getting affected, one of the student quoted.
“Moreover, if we were infected, we fear we would be left neglected due to the following reasons: Foreign identity, Communication difficulties in Russian, Minimum space in hospitals, Since Russia has not yet reached the peak in the number of infections, the situation could become worse in the future.
Our university has been named as a facility against Corona infection. There are around 290 students willing to go back home and they have been given permission.
We, together with our parents have requested the President and other officials through emails and other methods with regards to repatriation.
We are alarmed at the growing number of new cases and since students from countries which were at less risk compared to Russia were taken home, we feel that we have been neglected and have been treated unfairly causing us to grieve. We kindly request the President and other relevant parties to take measures to take us home immediately.”