Thiruvananthapuram, India – Prince Sebastian's gun strap gets tangled and he almost loses his life.
It was 6pm local time on February 4th. Prince and a detachment of soldiers fighting for the Russian army were advancing towards the Luhansk battlefield in occupied Ukraine. It wasn't what Prince, a fisherman from the southern Indian state of Kerala, 5,470 kilometers away, had signed up for, but at that moment he felt he had no choice but to keep moving, with Russian soldiers by his side. Meanwhile, a frenzied symphony of gunfire is an unwelcome soundtrack.
Suddenly, they were attacked and chaos erupted as bullets rained down on them. The superior officer loudly ordered the soldiers to fight back. But just as the straps got tangled and Prince lost the moment, a bullet ricocheted off the Russian tank with a sickening sound, lodged in Prince's left ear, and blood flowed from his mouth.
“I crouched down over a dead Russian soldier,” Prince recalls. “I was hit, but it didn't hurt. There was some numbness for a few seconds.”
Slowly coming to his senses, Prince began a long 3km (1.8 mile) crawl through the mud and an even longer fight to escape the Russians. Now, two months later, he is back at his home in Anju Thengu, a coastal village near Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram, escaping the war he was trapped in.
But as the thin 24-year-old remembers the horrors he left behind, he knows he has returned to the very life of poverty, unemployment and an uncertain future he was trying to escape when he went to Russia. . He returns to his old place, but the nightmare of his lifetime awaits him.
fishing for the future
It was a dream for a new start that led Prince and his fisherman cousins, Vineeth Silva and Tinu Paniadyam, both in their early 20s, to decide to move to Russia in January.
Weather patterns are becoming increasingly erratic, reducing both the number of days fishermen can be out at sea and the amount of catch they return. Coastlines are damaged by human activities. And there aren't many other jobs around. While Kerala has long boasted some of the best education and health indicators in India, it also has the highest youth unemployment rate in the country, at 28% compared to the national average of 10% for people aged 15-29. % or more.
“About 10 years ago, when I started going fishing with my father and uncles, we were promised big catches, and the fishing season sometimes lasted more than six months,'' Prince said four days after returning home. Front line between Russia and Ukraine. “But in recent years, the fishing season has been shortened to three months and the catch has been very poor.”
An offer to work as a security guard in Russia through a recruiter appealed to Prince and his cousins. In frigid January, they each paid a recruiter $8,000 to arrive in Moscow, only to be separated on landing by the Indian representative of the Moscow recruiter.
Prince was taken to an apartment and held there for four days. He got the food, but no answer to his doubts that grew by the hour: What was going on?
“Finally the truth came out. We were not there for the advertised position. We were planning to join the Russian army as helpers,” Prince said.
The solicitor, to whom the cousins had already paid the full amount, could no longer be contacted. “We had no choice but to follow the orders of our representatives,” Prince added.
Russian officials took the prince to an army camp in Rostov, a city in southern Russia that is home to the Kremlin's war in Ukraine. The officers spoke to Prince in English, but Prince had to sign some documents in Russian, which he did not understand.
“We realized we had been deceived, but I had no choice but to follow the Russian commander's yelling orders. I steeled myself to adapt,” Prince said.
Prince, along with hundreds of Russians and “a handful” of Indians, received training in physical fitness and first aid at a military camp. After 10 days, they were transferred to another camp nearby, where they received 13 days of weapons training. Their bodies, shaped for life at sea, are shaped for firing weapons.
They learned how to use AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades, and M60 machine guns, but it was a far cry from what Prince, who had flown in from India, had planned to do in Russia.
flesh and bone confetti
None of my weapons training was of any use when I was hit by bullets. He tried to move his body, disoriented and struggling to regain consciousness. He dug his elbows into the dirt-caked ground and dug his claws back into a nearby ditch.
Suddenly, a terrifying roar filled the air. A drone is approaching the sky.
“I lunged for cover, but it was too late,” Prince recalled. With a chilling hiss, the drone fired a grenade. It landed on a Russian soldier near Prince. In a blinding flash and a deafening roar, a fire broke out and the Russian soldiers were obliterated. “Flesh and bones rained down on me like confetti.”
He screamed amidst the unpleasant smell of gunpowder and burnt flesh.
“I thought I was going to die too,” he said, pulling his shirt down over his left shoulder to reveal a scar from a grenade explosion. Some were partially healed, while others were still fresh and snaked around his torso. He carefully rolled up his pants, revealing his burned calves. Some are faded, others are vivid reminders of the scorching heat from the blast. “It was blood, blood, blood.”
Prince stripped off his thick jacket, his packet of biscuits and the medicine he needed to survive, and crawled away. My vision became blurry and I heard someone calling out, “Prince, come quickly!''
“That was my cousin Vineet, whom I hadn't seen for a month. He had witnessed me collapse after the grenade explosion,” Prince said.
“In a few minutes we arrived near the trench. Vineeth dragged me in. By then it was dark. I couldn't see the blood dripping on my uniform, but I could smell it. And I was about to lose consciousness. “I saw Vineeth injecting me with painkillers,” Prince recalled.
Prince and Vineeth decided to rest that night in the trenches, which they knew would lead back to the Russian base camp. When night fell, they began to crawl again.
“By the time we reached base camp, I was almost dead. Vines explained to his commanders what had happened. It was carried away,” Prince said.
10 days hospitalization
On February 7, Prince woke up in a sterile hospital room. Doctors, with a look of haunted anxiety on their faces, pulled out the bullet that had lodged in his skull. The bullet he was unconsciously carrying during his harrowing escape.
He spent a total of 10 days in five hospitals, from Luhansk to Rostov. Eventually he was released and ordered to return to Luhansk to obtain his commander's signature on his injury leave application.
The prince ignored orders to remain in the Luhansk camp and returned to Moscow. He fabricated a story about a one-day visit to relatives in Moscow and successfully obtained permission. Prince took refuge in a church, where he met a priest and asked for help.
The church helped him get in touch with the Indian embassy and his family back home in India.
In the end, Prince returned to Japan on April 3rd. On his way to Kerala, he had to stop in New Delhi, where he was questioned by Indian security officials. In recent weeks, Indian security agencies have been arresting and raiding suspected recruiters to Russia under false pretenses.
But experts say the pattern of vulnerable Indians falling victim to job scams abroad is not limited to Russia's war in Ukraine.
“Leave it lost”
Rafique Labusa, executive director of the Kerala-based Indian Center for Migration Studies, said most Indian migrants are fooled by agents who promise them permanent residency in Europe.
“Many are taken on tourist visas and left in limbo,” Lavatar said. Prince and his cousins were also traveling to Russia on tourist visas.
But despite the crisis, political parties have made no mention of these overseas recruitment scams in their election manifestos, Lavatar said. India will vote in the world's largest election in seven phases starting April 19th. Kerala will vote in the second phase on April 26.
If dreams of a future abroad are often a mirage, there is little hope at home for millions of young Indians like Prince.
“In our coastal villages, fishermen families suffer from poverty. That is why they even dare to migrate to war-torn countries just to escape the struggle,” says Thiruvana. said Eugene H. Pereira, president of the Latin Catholic Archdiocese of Trivandrum, which covers most of the fishing villages near Ntapuram.
The India Employment Report 2024, recently released by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Institute for Human Development (IHD), shows that India's youth between the ages of 15 and 34 constitute almost 83 per cent of the unemployed workers in the country. It revealed that.
Prince is currently working with the Indian government to secure the release of his cousins Vineeth and Tinu, who are believed to still be in Ukraine fighting for Russia. That, he said, is his most pressing concern.
Moreover, the future is uncertain. Prince needs to repay the loan he took out to pay the recruiter. Only when the lingering pain on the left side of his body subsides can he dream of returning to the life he once lived: the rhythmic call of the sea and the freedom of fishing.
Her parents recommend that she get a thorough checkup, but they can't afford it. Regular summonses from intelligence agencies investigating cases and local police further disturb his fragile peace.
But beyond the storm in his head lies the familiar embrace of a village and the love of family.
He said this was a second life, a precious gift plucked from the brink of death. Despite the economic hardships in his hometown, he has no plans to leave his hometown again anytime soon. In his native village he finds solace and the strength to rebuild.
