The Ghanaian engineering student went to a window on the other side and discovered why: Russian planes were flying low above the city, trying to evade missiles that rifled through the sky – a scene resembling one of his favourite video games, Call of Duty.

As reality dawned, and with nowhere to turn, the 24-year-old, packed a bag and ran to the nearest underground train station for shelter, one of thousands of African students stranded in Ukraine during a Russian invasion, with no idea of how to escape.

“In a situation like this, you’re on your own. You’ve got to find the best way to find refuge for yourself,” he told Reuters by phone from the basement of a church where he eventually settled on Thursday night.

Cities under siege across Ukraine are home to tens of thousands of African students studying medicine, engineering and military affairs. Morocco, Nigeria and Egypt are among the top 10 countries with foreign students in Ukraine, together supplying over 16,000 students, according to the education ministry. Thousands of Indian students are also trying to flee.

What was meant to be a cheaper alternative to studying in Western Europe or the United States has turned overnight into a war zone as Russian tanks, planes and ships launch the biggest European invasion of another nation since World War Two.

With flights grounded, African governments thousands of miles away are struggling to support their students. The students Reuters spoke to said they had had no help from home.

“It’s now that the reality is really hitting me,” said Ohene-Yeboah. “I think for me it’s a bit too late for evacuation and all those things.”

STAY PUT OR RUN

Ghana’s student presence in Ukraine is big enough for it to have a local union chapter. In the days before the invasion, the union sent reports about the situation to the government in Accra.

“They confirmed that they received things like that, but we never got any real reply to any of our concerns,” said Ohene-Yeboah.

Afraid of taking the road west, and without flights or money, he will stay put for now.

Others are on the move.

When Russian bombs began to fall near the capital Kyiv, 400 km (250 miles) west of Kharkiv, on Thursday morning, a group of Kenyan medical students decided to leave. They have been in touch with officials from their government, one of them said, but they must find their own way out of Ukraine.

The five students rushed to Kyiv’s train station on Friday morning in the hope of boarding a train to the western city of Lviv. From there, they aim to go over the border into Poland from where they can return home.

A spot on board the train is not guaranteed.

“It is really, really bad. Everyone is fleeing the city,” said one of the medical students, who asked not to be named.

She and her colleagues brought nothing with them in the rush, only vital documents.

“We can’t carry luggage. Luggage will make us lag behind.”

Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Alison Williams

Somalia’s former spy chief Fahad Yasin has not been onboard the flight after Somali aviation authorities ordered airlines not to bring him to Mogadishu over alleged mobilization of forces against the government and compromise of airport security.

On Friday, dozens of heavily forces troops loyal to the current acting president entered the airport, triggering fear of clashes with forces allied with the Prime Minister shortly after plane carrying Fahad Yasin took off from Istanbul, before it was later rerouted to Djibouti due to security fears.

Somali President’s spokesman accused Djibouti of detaining the embattled former spy boss, though authorities in the tiny Horn of Africa nation described the allegation as “fake news”.

The plane returned all of its passengers, among them Yasin, to Istanbul and Turkish Airlines barred him from boarding another flight to Mogadishu on Saturday, citing government order banning him from entering the country.

Wrangling between Somali President and his Prime Minister escalated last week, nominally over the murder of a female spy and exchanged a number of statements, accusing each other of violations against the constitution and separation of powers within government institutions.

Yasin was expected to attend an important meeting called by the President last week to brief the National Security Council about the disappearance of Ikran Tahlil. The young female intelligence agent’s family earlier filed a case against him and three of his close associates, alleging that they had carried out Ikran’s murder.

It is yet unclear if Fahad would be able to arrive in Mogadishu on Saturday, but there are reports that he is planning to take a charter flight from Turkey to reach the Somali capital and not miss a meeting with the President.

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The opposition presidential candidates shared with the PM recommendations that could be used to improve “the NCC’s recent election guidelines issued by NCC to move ahead”, a spokesman for the government Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimu said.

Talks have come days after the opposition rejected the outcome of meeting between the prime minister and regional presidents and called a procedure for the Lower House of parliament elections agreed during the conference as unconstitutional.

Somali PM Mohamed Hussein Roble and opposition leaders agreed to pursue talks and hold follow-up meetings to discuss ways to hold the long-delayed polls while addressing concerns raised by some of the country’s political stakeholders.

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The former governor of Gedo region Osman Nour Haji (Moalimu) did not specify date for the visit of Jubaland leader Ahmed Madobe whose forces and troops loyal to Somalia’s incumbent president clashed several times in the region last year and at the beginning of this year.

“Ahmed Mohamed Islam will arrive in Gedo and he wants to inspect the region,” the former regional governor said.

The region has been at the epicenter of election dispute last year which led regional presidents and the federal leaders to walk out of talks designed to break deadlock over the country’s long-delayed polls.

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The head of US Africa Command sharing his views with the Pentagon’s top civilian leadership on Tuesday urged that troops be redeployed to the war-torn nation, plagued by a more than three decade-long conflict.

“I think we’ll keep those options right where they should be, in private communications with the secretary of defense, so our civilian leaders have the opportunity to make their decisions,” US Africa Command chief Gen. Stephen Townsend said during the European Union Defense Washington Forum.

It has proved so hard to train, advise and assist Somalia’s forces from afar, he added as the militant group Al-Shabaab increases attacks in southern and central regions of the country.

“I would say, though, that there’s really no denying our repositioning – fairly sudden repositioning – out of Somalia earlier this has introduced new layers of risk and complexity to our mission there,” Townsend said.

“Right now, we’re commuting back and forth to work,” Townsend added.

In January after the administration of former US president Donald Trump announced it had decided to pull out nearly 700 American troops from Somalia, the country’s leaders expressed fear that the move might embolden Islamist militants, who continue to wage an insurgency campaign to topple the western-backed federal government based in Mogadishu.

“We have limited opportunities to do that when we fly in and fly out for training,” AFRICOM chief said.

Director of the European Union Military Staff (EUMS) Hervé Bléjean, speaking at the forum on Tuesday, said Al-Qaeda-aligned militant group in Somalia still “enjoys a lot of freedom of action on the territory” and “you can really feel the atmosphere of the insecurity there” in the war-wrecked nation.

He added that the “war is far from over and they need some help to make that journey to the autonomy of the security and armed forces”.

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Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, accused the government of Somalia’s outgoing president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo of exploiting the youths due to their unemployment and of duping some of them with promise that they will be recruited for Qatar’s army – a job all of them considered a well-paid opportunity and wished to obtain.

“When leaving here they were duped and were sold. The youths were sold! I have no other explanation,” the former president said, launching a blistering attack on the government for its failure to address the issue.

As he continued to speak further, the former president, who is now a vocal critic of the outgoing president, stressed that the secret way the youths were enlisted is a telltale sign of sinister intention by government officials to sell them and send them as cannon fodder in one of the deadliest conflicts in the Horn of Africa region’s recent history.

On Tuesday, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the human rights situation in Eritrea confirmed that the Somali recruits were moved from Eritrean training camps and crossed into Ethiopia’s Tigray region to join the fight against the region’s former ruling party, Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). In a report, he said the missing Somali soldiers “were present around the town of Aksum”.

Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea have all denied reports of Somali troops deployed as cannon fodder in Tigray region to take part in the war aimed at cleansing the region of Tigrayan rebels.

In January, Somaliguardian investigation uncovered facts involving hundreds of Somali soldiers deployed in Ethiopia’s Tigray region after completing military training, in yet the first report ever published by a media outlet covering the issue, though the Mogadishu-based federal government denied it as baseless.

The UN report corroborates Somaliguardian’s account and confirms that the Somali soldiers crossed the border into Ethiopia alongside Eritrean forces and were transported from military training camps immediately after fighting erupted in Tigray region in November of last year.

Since then, the government has been facing mounting pressure and calls for an explanation on the whereabouts of the still missing youths are growing. Families want to know whether their sons are alive or dead, but the government has brushed aside their demands.

Protests staged by parents demanding information from the government have been taking place in Mogadishu and other cities in Somalia over the past few months, though their calls fell on deaf ears and efforts to address their complaints have yet to gather pace.

Former president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has added his voice to calls for a government explanation on the matter and urges former and current officials serving higher positions within the government to come forward and reveal facts involving the youths “sold” and sent to take part in the alarming human rights abuses in northern Ethiopia’s embattled region.

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It comes after Somaliguardian reported on January 16 that Eritrea deployed hundreds of Somali recruits in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and became the first media to break the news of whereabouts of thousands of missing Somali youths who had been sent to train in Eritrea.

UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker said Somali soldiers were moved from military training camps in Eritrea to the front line areas in Tigray where they fought alongside Eritrean troops.

“In addition to reports of the involvement of Eritrean troops in the Tigray conflict, the Special Rapporteur also received information and reports that Somali soldiers were moved from military training camps in Eritrea to the front line in Tigray, where they accompanied Eritrean troops as they crossed the Ethiopian border,” the report reads.

It corroborates Somaliguardian’s account that the Somali recruits accompanied Eritrean troops as they crossed over the border into Ethiopia’s Tigray region after fighting between Ethiopian forces and TPLF erupted in the region in November of last year.

Somalia’s government denied the report as baseless, though former deputy spy chief Abdisalam Guled later said nearly 400 Somali soldiers trained in Eritrea died in the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

“It is also reported that Somali fighters were present around Aksum.” the report added.

Protests staged by parents, whose sons are missing since traveling to Eritrea, broke out across various cities in Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu and families demanded an explanation from the government on the whereabouts of the recruits.

Amid growing anger at the government’s decision to send the youths to the conflict in Eritrea, parliamentary committee called for a fact-finding mission sent to Asmara and thorough investigation into the matter.

Speaker of Somalia’s upper house of parliament Abdi Hashi Abdullahi called on the government to give an explanation on the whereabouts of the missing sons and answer demands by the families of recruits deployed to the war in the embattled northern Ethiopian region.

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Former president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who is among 14 presidential candidates that had hopes of running against president Farmajo before polls were delayed, moved into Karan district, north of the capital which is under control of powerful militias from his clan.

He has not yet commented on the decision to move from his home near Adan Adde airport, but the move comes amid fears over clashes between opposition supporters and forces loyal to Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo.

Government deployed troops with armored military vehicles around Shirkole neighborhood on Wednesday where forces loyal to former Banadir police chief Sadak Jon are stationed, in what brought the two sides to the brink of fighting, though calm has later returned following efforts by Galmudug leader and other officials, who pressed on both sides to exercise restraint and ensure pull-back of forces.

Former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is planning to settle down in Sisi neighborhood, a stronghold of his clan where his supporters can protect him from possible attacks by pro-government forces, sources have told Somaliguardian on Thursday.

Hassan Ali Khaire, an erstwhile ally of president Farmajo and his former prime minister took up residence in Daynile district, west of the capital – an area under complete control of clan militias and forces from his clan.

Other opposition leaders are also expected to follow suit as troop buildup in the capital is feared to trigger direct clashes between pro-government troops led by commanders mainly from president Farmajo’s clan and opposition supporters.

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Sources within the Somali government have told Somaliguardian that president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo is still insisting that Puntland and Jubaland states announce their electoral commissions before talks would resume.

The two semi-autonomous states have not yet appointed their regional electoral commissions and refused to send members representing them in the federal electoral commission to Mogadishu, accusing the federal government of stacking the electoral board with loyalists of the incumbent president.

The preconditions came as talks between regional states and the federal government were expected to open to bring an end to a long-standing dispute over the upcoming elections, but the government’s decision is feared to delay efforts aimed to reach a broad-based agreement over the issue.

Officials with Somalia president’s office, speaking to Somaliguardian, said the federal government would remove members of the electoral board who are at the epicenter of the current standoff, if Puntland and Jubaland leaders name their electoral bodies.

Somali president also insists on keeping government troops in Gedo while Jubaland leader Ahmed Madobe demands withdrawal of what he called “guerrilla forces” deployed by the national intelligence forces.

The government’s new conditions could complicate potential deal over upcoming elections, with only two weeks before the incumbent president’s term expires.

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UN Secretary General António Guterres deployed a fact finding mission to Somalia on August last year to provide recommendations on future of 19,000 African Union force, which is currently undergoing a phased exit from Somalia.

António Guterres gave the team three options on determining the destiny of the African Union peacekeeping mission, report says. The team recommended the replacement of AMISOM by UN peacekeepers to reach goals set for the African Union and secure donors’ funding for the mission.

African countries contributing their troops to the mission had earlier urged the UN to take over responsibility for funding AMISOM through UN Security Council.

Authors who wrote the recommendations also proposed other option that a joint AU-UN mission is established while the third alternative would be based on the G5 Sahel model, a collective force from a number of African countries fighting Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb alongside French troops.

The African Union has not been given an opportunity to engage in consultations over the future of its peacekeeping mission in Somalia and it has reportedly refused to cooperate with the UN fact-finding mission.

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