Rabat

- Moroccan young man Mehdi Mukhles (23 years) breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he set foot in Casablanca airport from the Romanian capital (Bucharest), and Mukhles returned to his country on the first trip to evacuate Moroccan citizens residing in Ukraine after crossing the border towards neighboring countries.

From Wednesday until Friday, 1,280 Moroccans residing in Ukraine arrived at Casablanca Airport via 8 flights from Warsaw and Bucharest, and about 6,600 Moroccans left Ukraine through various ports, according to Moroccan media, citing diplomatic sources, which it described as reliable.

The number of Moroccans in Ukraine is about 12,000, including 8,800 students, according to the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs until the end of last year.

Moroccan students come in second place in the ranking of foreign nationals coming to this European country to study, after students from India.

Fear of the unknown

Pharmacist student Mehdi Mukhles left Dnipro, the third largest city in Ukraine, on Saturday night with 7 of his countrymen on a train to Odessa, from which they boarded a bus towards the border with Romania.

Mahdi tells Al Jazeera Net that the trip was long due to overcrowding at the train stations and borders and because of the fear of the unknown.

Although the city was far from the battlefield and had not yet been subjected to Russian bombardment when Mehdi left with his comrades, the foreigners and many Ukrainians decided to look for a safe place before things got worse.

"We spent 5 hours waiting before entering Romania, but some friends spent 2-3 days in the cold and in the open because of overcrowding in some border posts. We were lucky because the center we entered from was less crowded than others," he says.

"When we entered the Romanian side of the border, they gave us food, clothes and tents, and we also found representatives of the Moroccan embassy," he added.

Despite his feeling of safety upon his arrival in his country, many questions still linger in the mind of Mahdi Mukhlis, who hails from the Moroccan city of Taza.


After he hastily left the city where he studied pharmacy for two years, his academic future seems ambiguous, and he does not know if he will return to Ukraine again to complete his education.

The torment of surviving the bombing

Hundreds of Moroccan students, especially in Kharkiv and Kiev, found themselves surrounded by the sounds of rockets and bullets in the wake of the Russian attack on Ukraine, a situation they were unfamiliar with in their lives, which made them and their families live days of panic and terror.

Medical student Omaima Mastari tells the story of her exit from the capital, Kyiv, on the second day of the war, after a perilous adventure.

She tells Al Jazeera Net that she slept on Thursday night last week after hours she spent studying in preparation for an exam the next day, only to wake up to the sounds of explosions and bombing.

"I woke up terrified, I didn't know what happened, the apartment was shaking and the sounds were strong and terrifying," she says.

Omaima is studying medicine in her sixth year, and according to her, the university refused to allow foreign students to leave the country and study remotely, claiming that things were stable and the option of war was excluded.

Moroccans trying to leave #Ukraine, by train, under the sound of explosions!!!# Russia #Russia_Ukraine pic.twitter.com/im3hviVAHO

— hicham (@snoussihicham) February 25, 2022

first day horror

Omaima spent the first day of the war in terror. For the first time in her life, she saw missiles and heard the sounds of bombs, scenes, as she tells, that she only saw in films and news screens.

On the second day, she decided to leave Kyiv. I picked up a backpack with her personal documents, her computer, money, and some food and water.

"I left everything behind, my clothes, my books and all my things, I only went out with the clothes I was wearing, I survived by myself," she says.

Omaima met Arab friends at the train station and took a bus from Kyiv towards Lviv.

She explains, "The road was tiring and long. On normal days, we would cross it in 5 hours, but during our exit this time we spent 24 hours on the bus due to overcrowding on the road. We took turns sitting on chairs."

After arriving in Lviv, Omaima and a colleague took a taxi towards the Slovak border.

The driver tried to shorten the road, a girl, and the car got stuck in the snow, they cooperated to get it out and returned to the normal road and reached the border after 9 hours.


Crowding, cold, hunger and crying

At the Slovak border, another suffering began, with crowding, extreme cold and hunger.

"After the adventure of getting out of Kyiv under the bombardment, the torment journey began at the border, we walked 3 hours on foot to reach the border post, we got rid of the food we had because it was weighing on us because of the cold and fatigue," she says.

After waiting for hours, Omaima and her colleagues crossed towards Slovakia, only to find themselves on Sunday in the open, snow and hunger, with no taxis or buses to take them to the nearest city.

She continues, "He helped me and my colleague, a Slovak man, when he learned that we had left Ukraine, he offered us to take us to the capital with his family."

She added, "In many moments, I would cry to get rid of pressure and tension. I wanted this suffering to end, but it never ends. I wanted some warmth, but I could not find it. Some food, but I could not find it. I relied on myself and cooperated with my friends to get out of the bombing in Kyiv."

The young woman took the train from the Slovak capital (Bratislava) towards Vienna in Austria, and from there she took the plane towards Morocco via Turkey, to reach her family in the city of Laayoune (southern Morocco) after a long and arduous journey.

She says, "I did not live in these conditions in my life. I spent 3 days of fear and suffering before I reached a hotel in the Slovak capital. My family was afraid for me. I could not believe what happened and did not imagine it would happen."

Since the beginning of the Russian attack on Ukraine last week, 5,700 Moroccans managed to leave it in groups through various border posts to the borders on Friday morning, a diplomatic official confirmed to Moroccan media.


Exit before the war

As for the young Mohamed Gharib (21 years old), from Casablanca, who was also studying pharmacy in Dnipro, he returned to Morocco before the Russian attack on Ukrainian lands.

He tells Al Jazeera Net that, in consultation with his parents, he decided to return to Morocco after the recommendation circulated by the Moroccan embassy on February 12, in which it called on Moroccans residing in Ukraine to leave it.

Muhammad and a number of his colleagues met with the university administration and asked them to authorize them to leave for their countries until the situation stabilizes, which she agreed to.


Mohamed managed to return to Morocco 3 days before the outbreak of the war, but since then he has been following the news of his friends and colleagues who remained in the city.


About 3,000 Moroccan students were able to return to their country days before the Russian attack on 5 direct flights, following a recommendation by the Moroccan embassy.


Stuck in Ukraine

And if Muhammad, Omaima, Mahdi, and hundreds of students returned to Morocco and escaped by themselves from the war and the escalation that has threatened many Ukrainian cities, other students and citizens are still stuck, some of whom are waiting for their turn to return via trips allocated by the Moroccan authorities to their citizens, and others remain inside Ukrainian soil.

Among them is the young Moroccan Khalil, who was unable to leave the city of Kherson, located on the Black Sea in the south of the country.

He tells Al Jazeera Net from inside his house that the situation in the city is bad after the Russian army took control of it. The residents do not leave the homes, and all the shops, institutions and transport stations are closed.

Khalil, who is from Rabat in Ukraine, has been living for 4 years and settled a year ago in Kherson with his wife.

Khalil closed his house on him, awaiting the results of the coming days, which seemed unknown to him. He tells that he lived terrifying nights without sleep due to the continuous bombing of the city.

"They asked us to stay in our homes and turn off the lights, and this is what we do," he says. "I don't know anything about the future. The food I stored at home is running out and the shops are closed, and I can't go out to get money because the banks are closed."

Khalil could not leave Kherson earlier, and he explains - to Al Jazeera Net - that the situation was stable at first, but with the sirens sounding and the beginning of the bombing, the city was completely closed.

In his view, the situation is different in this city compared to others. Despite the intense bombing of Kyiv and Kharkiv, their residents were able to leave by trains and go out at certain times to buy their needs, while the train and metro stations were closed in Kherson, and the only bridge leading out of the city was blown up.

Khalil refused to give his full name and photo for fear of his family. "I tell my family that I am fine and that the situation is stable, and I tell them that I am about to leave the city in order to reassure them, I do not want to sow terror in them, especially my mother."

In the press conference that followed the government council, Thursday, government spokesman Mustapha Baitas said that the process of evacuating Moroccans from Ukraine was "successful" and "exceptional" and is continuing, noting that Moroccans are the largest nationality evacuated from that country after the Ukrainians.