Hundreds of Latin America residents, including many students, flee Ukraine conflict

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Close to 250 Ecuadoreans, many of them university students, arrived back in the country on Friday after fleeing Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, joining hundreds of other Latin Americans who have evacuated.

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More than one million refugees have fled Ukraine since Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the biggest attack on a European state since the Second World War.

Latin American countries have been co-ordinating flights from Ukraine’s neighbours, such as Romania, Poland and Hungary.

“This has marked our lives,” said Mercedes Sanchez, whose 18-year-old son Jorge Criollo arrived back in Quito on the Friday flight, after traveling through several Ukrainian cities that he said were under fire from Russian troops, crossing into Slovakia and later going to Budapest.

“My greatest fear was that my son would die there,” Sanchez told Reuters late on Thursday from her home in northern Quito.

Studies brought many to Ukraine, Russia

Criollo is among hundreds of Ecuadorean students who chose to pursue university in Russia or Ukraine, where higher education is cheaper than in Ecuador.

Joe Puglla, a music student from Loja, Ecuador, chats on his cell phone with his family on an evacuation flight provided by Mexico’s government during a fuel stop in Shannon, Ireland, on Thursday. The Mexican government evacuated Mexicans and others living in Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion, from Romania near Ukraine’s border. (Fernando Llano/The Associated Press)

Some 850 Ecuadoreans were registered as living in Ukraine, according to Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Holguin.

Another evacuation flight will leave Friday for Quito from Warsaw, and Holguin told local radio Ecuador is also working to bring over some 100 pets.

A total of 1,500 Ecuadorean citizens, including those living in border areas in Russia, may be at risk in the conflict, the government has said.

Forty-four Mexicans and 37 people of other nationalities, including seven Ecuadoreans, arrived in Mexico on a flight from Romania in the early hours of Friday, Mexico’s foreign ministry said on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Colombia said some 248 of its citizens — most of the 293 registered as being residents in Ukraine — had evacuated as of Thursday. Another 26 are in the process of leaving, it added.

Ecuadoreans who fled from Ukraine are seen upon arrival at Quito’s Mariscal Sucre airport on Friday. (Rodrigo Buendia/AFP/Getty Images)

Chile says it has two reception centres in Poland, while 31 Peruvians had left Ukraine as of Wednesday.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido said on Thursday 348 Venezuelans were living in Ukraine. The Venezuelan government has not given an official figure.

WATCH | NATO rules out no-fly zone:

NATO again rules out no-fly zone, direct involvement in Ukraine

NATO allies have rejected Ukraine’s demand for a no-fly zone, saying they are increasing support but that stepping in directly would escalate the conflict with Russia. 2:24

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