In the Ghanaian capital city of Accra this week, what was scheduled as a short meeting for the relatives of people trapped in Ukraine lasted three hours, as dozens of mothers, fathers, siblings and spouses lined up to take turns speaking into a microphone – asking questions, airing complaints or sharing information about what their loved ones were experiencing.
One woman asked in how many days specifically her daughter would be back to her. Another said he wanted to be reunited with his wife and baby. A third read out messages from his son, in a city where escape routes have been cut off.
Around 1,200 Ghanaians were in Ukraine at the time the invasion started, the vast majority of them students. African students – including 4,000 Nigerians – make up 20 per cent of Ukraine’s foreign student population.
Justice Afari Dwomoah, a fifth-year medical student in Kharkiv, said they had been worried about war breaking out for a long time and students appealed to both their university and the Ghanaian government to allow them to take their university classes online.
He said they sent a letter to the Ghanaian embassy in Switzerland around two months before conflict broke out. "We were asking and pleading with them, 'try to talk to our schools . . . or force them to switch our classes . . . online.' But this wasn't done." No reply was forthcoming.
At the end of January Dwomoah decided to leave Ukraine anyway and return to Ghana, but others could not do the same as they faced fines from their university for skipping classes. "We've had rumours of wars every single year I've been in Ukraine, but this year it looked extraordinary and it looked different to every single other year. [But] if Putin kept on playing these mind games I would have gone back and I would have been in this same situation my friends are going through. So it wasn't the fault of students, it was just the situation at hand," he said.
Evacuated
Faustane Owusu Acheaw said she travelled for hours from Ghana's eastern region to be present at the 10am meeting. Her son is a final-year pharmacy student still stuck in Kharkiv. "He's not safe," she said, bowing her head. According to her account, the Pentecostal church organised a bus to the border which evacuated other students, but because her son is a Catholic he was barred from boarding it.
Like many parents there, Acheaw was also concerned about her son being able to finish his education. “He’s spent five years studying,” she told The Irish Times. “I had to pay a lot. The worry is if he doesn’t graduate he won’t get his certification.”
Daniel Dakwa said his wife had spent six years in Ukraine, at a cost of $6,500 a year plus living expenses. She escaped through Hungary, and returned to Ghana on Wednesday, but he wants her to graduate. "Someone who has spent six years with only months left studying medicine and then this wahala [trouble] has happened," he said publicly during the meeting, to applause. "Something can be done so that our brothers and sisters, when they come home, can continue their education."
Ghana's foreign minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, said the government will look into it for the future, but "this is an emergency situation" and the meeting was about evacuations specifically. She said the government is "committed to doing everything possible" to get the students back to Ghana, and would pay for repatriation flights. As of Sunday, 527 Ghanaians had managed to escape Ukraine.
On their own
However, Botchway warned that students who refuse to return to Ghana will be on their own after a few days. "The government cannot cover those people forever," she said. "For those of them who think that this is an opportunity for them to enter into Europe, the immigration services are very adept and the last thing we want is for any student or any Ghanaian [to] enter into a country only to be arrested."
Many relatives spoke of their concern for a group of more than 500 international students stuck in Sumy, a city in northeastern Ukraine. Some asked would it be possible for this group to escape through Russia, which Ghana's foreign minister said she did not advise. One man read an update from his son there, who said there was no way to get out anymore.
Separately, the sister of an Irish-Nigerian medical student in Sumy said there had been an explosion on Wednesday morning, and they are pleading with the Irish government to help her. (The Department of Foreign Affairs said it is aware of the cited case and providing consular assistance where possible.)
In Accra, there are many still hoping that their loved ones will reach safety. “May God bless us all,” said the minister, as the meeting drew to an end. “Bless the families represented here and their children there.”
