As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the globe, dozens of Zimbabwean students studying in Russia are fearing for their lives as they are stuck in dormitories facing possible sickness and starvation. The students are appealing for financial assistance and evacuation from the virus infected dormitories.
The students were bid farewell by the Vice President of Zimbabwe Mr Kembo Muhadi in October 2019 to commence their studies in Science and Engineering on the Presidential Scholarship under the flagship of the Russia Bilateral Scholarships Programme. The merit based scholarship is awarded to students who are considered orphaned, vulnerable, and from low-income backgrounds who excelled in hard sciences at Advanced Level. Early last year, the presidential scholarship program was hit by scandal as students took to twitter with complaints of starvation and financial desperation. Though the Presidential scholarship Programme Executive Director, Dr. Chris Mushohwe dismissed the complaints as unfounded and a result of the student’s lack of financial literacy, the program has gained a reputation for neglecting its students as the government struggles to finance the needs of thousands of its gifted scholars across the globe.
The students received US$1000 stipend upon their arrival in Russia and have not received additional stipend since. The scholarship program only covers tuition with the students having to balance their stipend between paying for rent, medical aid, food, transport, clothing, internet, computers and learning materials, among other basic necessities. The rise in the cost of living has gone up during the course of the pandemic, and this has hit the students the most as they have been in a precarious position financially with only US$1000 stipend to meet their average US$400per month cost of living expenses. The lack of funds has resulted in their inability to cope with changing circumstances and requirements as a result of a Lockdown which has been in effect for 3 weeks.
As of May 1st, 2020, Russia has recorded 114,431 cases and 1169 deaths from the novel virus. Russia is now the eighth most-affected country in terms of Coronavirus infections, having surpassed China and Iran this week. The country recorded the highest single-day increase with 7,933 new coronavirus infections last Friday.
Though they are still in good health by the time this article was written, Zimbabwean students are living in constant fear as they witness their colleagues being carried to the hospitals and some dying. Since April 19th some students have been confined to small dorm rooms with up to 4 occupants, and only allowed to leave the hostel for not more than 2 hours daily.
Below are some challenges listed in plights for urgent financial and welfare assistance.
I think we are facing one problem as students. Hostels are infested by covid 19 virus. All we need is money to buy sanitizers masks , lemons etc that help us to survive in this pandemic. Writing individual emails will be a waste of time because the challenges are the same. At this point it’s clear that our stipend alone isn’t enough; we need financial assistance. It means you will receive 200 emails with the same request. Please notify the good office that the students cannot survive under these conditions. We are now surviving as third class citizens from our fellow African students who have bought necessities as recommended under these circumstances. No one is safe. Conditions are deteriorating and worsening on a daily basis. The evidence is that we use common facilities such as kitchens , toilets and bathrooms. We need to stay safe there is no evidence that we can get more than the statistics that we get daily
mu floor medu mabatwa macases apa yatovharwa we a not allowed even to go out of our room even to cook apa we don’t have money to buy food ,mask n gloves
There has been reported cases on my floor and we are not allowed to go out of our room, even to cook and we don’t have money to buy food, masks and gloves.
Guys things are slowly getting out of hand. Here Russian were told to go home and no more russians or a very few are still there. My neighbouring hostel had been fumigated. Some students reacted to the chemicals. They did not have masks, gloves and sanitizers to wash all this. Today doctors came to test them and gave them injections. They expect us to have protective clothing. If you are Afraid to tell your parents who will do that when you die here? We need to know kuti zve hupenyu hazvinyarwe. We need to be safe guys. It seems we are on our own since the scholarship is on lockdown. Why should we keep on bothering @Gogo VaZaine when we can clearly see that she does not have the capacity to assist us. It’s high time we do one thing as a unit and agree. I know we have different opinions and backgrounds. We have people here who can survive even if the stipend does not come. Let us not assume kuti vanhu tiri pa same level..
It’s better to send the videos of our pleas to our families and maybe they can help. We are talking about life and death here. Perhaps they might be able to listen and assist. If a quarter or so of us can have money from their families, maybe they might be able to help those with totally nothing. Maybe through our committe it can be possible for the scholarship office to approach our families they have the details and notify them that we need help, and the department cannot assist now because of lockdown. Nekuti some parents if we tell them tega they will say the government said the cover everything but for now there is a Lockdown back home and government offices are closed.I am telling you if one of us dies they will say we didn’t tell anyone. I think our committee should do more for us.
We need to pay for the internet every month to attend classes online. Some of us have no laptops and we can’t use our phones because they are not compatible and we end up missing a lot of classes. We are required to check our temperatures three times daily: we need to buy thermometers. We need money for rent, food, basic hygiene, clothing and cooking utensils.The price of home remedies like lemon, ginger and basic commodities have skyrocketed due to high demand.
