Racism At Ukraine Border: Foreign Students Face Disparate Treatment As They Flee Country

International students attempting to flee war-ravaged Ukraine have claimed to be experiencing racist treatment by security forces and border officials.

A Nigerian medical student told CNN she and other foreigners were ordered off the public transit bus at a checkpoint between the Ukraine and Poland border.

"More than 10 buses came and we were watching everyone leave. We thought after they took all the Ukrainians they would take us, but they told us we had to walk, that there were no more buses and told us to walk," Rachel Onyegbule, a Nigerian first-year medical student in Lviv, said.

She was left stranded at the border town of Shehyni, some 400 miles from Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.

"My body was numb from the cold and we haven't slept in about 4 days now. Ukrainians have been prioritized over Africans -- men and women -- at every point. There's no need for us to ask why. We know why. I just want to get home," Onyegbule told CNN in a telephone call Sunday.

Onyegbule eventually got her exit document stamped Monday.

A similar ordeal was shared by Saakshi Ijantkar, a fourth-year medical student from India.

"There are three checkposts we need to go through to get to the border. A lot of people are stranded there. They don't allow Indians to go through," Ijantkar told CNN Monday via a phone call from Lviv, western Ukraine.

The Nigerian government called out Monday the “unfortunate reports” of the Ukrainian police “refusing to allow Nigerians to board buses and trains.”

“It is paramount that everyone is treated with dignity and without favor,” Nigeria’s presidential office and residence said in a statement on Twitter. “All who flee a conflict situation have the same right to safe passage under UN Convention and the color of their passport or their skin should make no difference.”

South Africa’s head of public diplomacy also raised similar concerns that South African students and other Africans “have been badly treated” at Ukraine’s border with Poland.

Meanwhile, reports surfaced early Tuesday an Indian student was killed in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city that is witnessing heavy shelling by Russian forces.

“With profound sorrow we confirm that an Indian student lost his life in shelling in Kharkiv this morning. The Ministry is in touch with his family. We convey our deepest condolences to the family,” the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Arindam Bagchi, said on Twitter.