The government has evacuated 206 Ghanaians from war-torn Ukraine, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration.
Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Kwaku Ampratwum-Sarpong, said all of the country’s residents had been evacuated from Sumy, Ukraine.
“We received word late last night that all Ghanaians holed up in bunkers and shelters at Sumy University had moved out, So they should be in one of the neighbouring nations right now,” Mr Ampratwum-Sarpong stated. “There are no more Ghanaians in Sumy.”
Russia launched a full attack on Ukraine Thursday, February 24.
The United Nations human rights office says it has verified 1,335 civilian casualties so far in Ukraine, including 474 killed and 861 injured, but the actual toll was likely to be higher.
Mr Ampratwum-Sarpong further noted that the government had earmarked $2 million for the evacuation process.
“In anticipation of it, the ministry itself started using some of its money to get this thing moving,” he told Citi FM.
The government believes there were about 1,200 Ghanaians in Ukraine, with 945 of them being students registered with the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), Ukraine.
With the closure of Ukraine’s airspace following the invasion of Russia, the options available to Ghanaians have been to travel by land to countries such as Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
The Ghanaian students, along with other Africans and South Asians in Ukraine, faced widespread discrimination in their attempts to leave the country.
What is happening in Ukraine?
Russian forces have launched a military assault on neighbouring Ukraine, crossing its borders and bombing military targets near big cities.
In a televised address, Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, reportedly ordered a “military operation” in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, but what’s been launched goes far further and amounts to a full-scale attack on the country.
Russian military vehicles were said to have breached the border in several places, in the north, south, and east, including from Belarus.
CCTV images issued by the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine reportedly show Russian military vehicles moving across the border from Crimea.
Russia is attacking Ukraine on several fronts, but Ukrainian resistance slowed its advance.
Meanwhile, Russia said both sides had agreed to continue talking and meet again “in the next few days”.
Why has Russia attacked Ukraine?
There have been hostilities between Russia and Ukraine after the former became a sovereign state after breaking away from the Soviet Union.
However, in 2021, the situation escalated after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his desire to US President Joe Biden to approve admission to join NATO.
Russian President Vladimir Putin believes Ukraine is a puppet of the West and allowing a partnership with NATO will give the West access to set up military bases closer to Russia, which could facilitate an attack on Moscow.
Russia has demanded that the West gives a legally binding guarantee that NATO will not hold any military activity in eastern Europe and Ukraine.
Russia further wants Ukraine to desist from any NATO membership.
The new tension between Russia and Ukraine, which also borders the European Union, has political and economic repercussions for the EU.
Consequently, the EU, most of who are NATO signatories, have joined the US in announcing sanctions against Russian entities.