Ukraine: Broken dreams of a Nigerian medical student

Bisola Ehi Ogolowa, 29, is a fourth year medical student in Dnipro, Ukraine.

"I started this journey of medical school in 2013.

2013, I first got admission and went to Ukraine in 2013.

So, in 2014, the whole Russia dispute with Ukraine started. 2014 I had to leave Ukraine.

This is the second time now, second time trying to graduate with medical degree in Ukraine. Second time now, Russians, second time Russians have put a stop to me to ...

I cannot spend nine years trying to be a medical doctor and give up now. It's going to be like I have wasted nine years of my life. I can't.

On Saturday we started moving, we went to the train station because they said that we should go to either Poland or Hungary or Romania. So the plan was to go to Poland initially.

On Saturday, we went to the train station and when we got to the train station, there were a lot of people, like the place was full and everything then. When we got to the train station, we were supposed to take a train to Lviv but when we got to the train station in Dnipro to enter the train to Lviv it was hard. In the sense that there was racism. Before you enter the train, they say you have to get a ticket and they wouldn't sell tickets to the blacks. They wouldn't sell tickets to us. It was only Ukrainians they were selling tickets to and they said we couldn't enter the train without tickets.

There were two lines, this line and this line, and they said this line was the one we were supposed to be on to get tickets. We were standing for hours, over four hours. They didn't let us go through. The soldiers blocked the road, they didn't let us go through.

But guess what? When their people came, when the Ukrainian people came, they literarily made a way for them to pass through to get tickets. So the priority was women and children, but not us. It didn't include us blacks. It was just them, their women and children. We were like, 'what about us'? We are also women too. Why are we not allowed to go through. I am standing in place for people like us that have been displaced and I am  crying for help. We have been through a lot emotionally, mentally and financially now. And please stop the war."