AN AFRICAN student who fled war-torn Ukraine has said animals were evacuated before black students. 

Speaking to The Voice from Hungary, Jessica Orakpo, 23, a medical student from Nigeria, she said the level of racism and hostility faced by African students was “dehumanising.” 

She said: “The first bus went, the second bus went and when the third bus came, people were putting their pets on and making space for their animals and it was just unfair. 

“I saw a family with their dogs and their pet cages on the bus, but they were not letting African students on the bus. 

This comes as the United Nations announced last week at least one million people have left Ukraine in the week since Russia’s invasion, making it the biggest and quickest evacuation this century.

But for many African students, their attempt to reach safety was deliberately stopped and hindered by officials who used race as a reason not to grant them access to borders or buses out of the war-ravaged country. 

Ms Orakpo said: “It was dehumanising because we were all trying to run to safety, at this point our skin colour should not matter because even if the Ukrainian government said they are prioritising Ukrainians, I have friends that are black and Ukrainian so how do they know who is Ukrainian and who is not?

“Once it got to past night, it was so cold that even ski gloves couldn’t keep my hands warm. 

“We were taken to a shelter and in the morning we had to go to the border.”  

Ms Orakpo was studying medicine at Ternopil National Medical University and was also the president of the Nigerian student body. 

She recalled her journey fleeing Ukraine as “traumatic and chaotic.” 

She said: “The problem was not at the Polish border but at the Ukrainian border because you have to get stamped out of Ukraine to get stamped into Poland.

“The Ukrainian officials were not letting in anyone black, they were only prioritising their citizens. 

“My friend was taken out of the line for Ukrainians to go first.”

Ms Orakpo told The Voice, she witnessed animals being allowed to board buses out of Ukraine before African students. 

“I saw a family with their dogs and their pet cages on the bus, but they were not letting African students on the bus.”

Jessica Orakpo medical student

“The officials were only worried about the Ukrainians that were white, they told a young African boy in the line ‘you can walk’.”

Ms Orakpo says she was stamped and given the number 30 and was just about to board the bus when someone shouted “why blacks?”

She claims a Ukrainian official pushed her aside and said “just Ukrainians are entering.”

She said she waited for the fourth bus, and upon its arrival she said the driver shouted: “I don’t want to see any internationals on my bus, just Ukrainians.” 

She said she grew frustrated at the treatment of African people at the bus stop, so she asked the officials directly if the buses being provided were just for Ukrainians and said they told her “yes”. 

“I asked her ‘what about the black people?’ and she just shrugged her shoulders I told her that was racist but she just walked away,” Ms Orakpo said. 

The medical student looked at her map and it said six hours to the Polish border, so she decided to walk. 

Ms Orakpo said she was walking for about half an hour when she saw an African student coming back with his belongings. 

She said: “I asked him ‘why are you going the wrong way?’ and he said he had been at the border for two days in the cold and he cannot enter.” 

She decided to head back into Ukraine and a friend hired a private bus to take her to a train station to get to Hungary. 

She said: “The train station was so full and it was only black people at that station. 

“It was very chaotic, because soldiers were maltreating them and pushing them back.

“It was dehumanising and they were shouting at you and they had guns and their fingers were literally on the trigger, I was so scared. 

“I was so scared I went back because I didn’t want a situation where the gun would go off by mistake.

“I eventually got a train ticket and they put us in a room for those who would be getting the train, I was so relieved to be in that room that I almost fainted.”

Ms Orakpo told The Voice, the train to Hungary arrived at 6.30am and once the doors opened there was a rush to get on the train. 

Ms Orakpo arrived in Hungary last week Monday and she said the process has been “smooth and swift”. 

However, she is unsure what will happen next as the temporary accommodation she was given by a friend in the city of Debrecen was only booked for a week and will expire tomorrow.

She said: “I’ve been here for a week, today makes it a week. 

“I’m in a mini apartment that I was given temporarily it was booked for eight nights and tomorrow it will be expiring. 

“So that is why I am trying to figure out where I am going to stay after tomorrow. 

“My friend who is with me is sick because of all of the travelling, so we are just trying to get our energy back and we are looking for where to stay.

“We are trying to apply for funding from the online organisations that we have seen on Twitter and Instagram, but we haven’t got any feedback yet. 

“I called the Nigerian Embassy in Hungary but has not yet received a reply.” 

The Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, condemned the racist treatment of African students in Ukraine last week. 

But Ms Orakpo says the horrific experiences of African students in Ukraine must serve as a “wakeup call” for African leaders.

She said: “If Africa was doing so well, I wouldn’t want to come to Europe for anything, I would want to stay home.

“Our government needs to do better at taking care of its citizens, we wouldn’t want to leave for another country where we are treated like we don’t matter.

“Most people leave their home countries because they are not getting the best there and other countries offer more, but if back home our government are giving us good healthcare system, good education and security, no one would want to leave Africa, we would only want to come to Europe for a holiday.

“Our government need to wake up, people prefer to come here and suffer than stay back home because there is nothing, it is really sad. 

Ms Orakpo also said there was no excuse for Ukrainians to be treating African people so unfairly. 

“I feel for the Ukrainians because right now they need all the good press so that other countries can help them, but the fact that they are going through this war doesn’t give them the ticket to treat people poorly. 

“They need to do better, it is not the first time Europe has had this racism, it has always been there.” 

According to government data from 2020, Ukraine had over 76,000 overseas students, with almost a quarter of them being from African countries.