Students from earthquake-stricken Haiti studying in Moscow are sick with worry for their relatives at home and are unsure if they will be able to continue studying.
With winter exams under way, Haitians at the People's Friendship University of Russia have hardly been able to focus on their studies since a powerful quake hit the country on Tuesday.
Tens of thousands are feared dead after the quake, and many more were hurt or left homeless in the impoverished Caribbean state, which is still suffering aftershocks.
Students say their phone calls home have gone largely unanswered.
"We do not know whether they are alive. I cannot sleep, cannot eat. It's all beyond me," Fredeline Felix, a student at the international university in southwestern Moscow, said as she wiped away tears.
"It's awful! I have a wife and a son there, he has just turned 9. I do not know where they are now," Victor Luckner Robenson said.
Mathematics department student Adlin Bedard is the only one of 52 Haitian students at the university fortunate enough to have received news about his family at home.
"My brother's girlfriend called me last night. She lives in the United States. She said my family is all right, they are alive, but have been left homeless. They are living on the street now," he said.
Felix also said that many of her fellow Haitian students will soon run out of money, and feel uncertain about their future in Moscow as their families paid for their studies and accommodation.
"We are finished without their help. We cannot work here because foreigners are forbidden to work," she said, adding that right now she only wants to be with her sister and 4-month-old niece.
Haiti's international airport is almost dysfunctional due to power outages and the destruction of the flight control tower, which has hampered deliveries of humanitarian aid from countries across the world. Most aid was reported to have landed in the country, but cannot be delivered to the capital because of road conditions.
Sanitary conditions in the impoverished Caribbean state are reaching catastrophic levels due to the lack of water and decaying bodies lying on the streets of the capital.
Eliezer Cassy, a student of public relations, told RIA Novosti by telephone that the Haitian students have met with the university principals asking they should all be transferred to free-of-charge departments.
"They promised to consider the request and provide psychological aid," Cassy said. "But no aid has been provided so far."
He said about 100 students from Haiti are studying in Russia.
A People's Friendship University spokeswoman said the university would try to help its students establish contact with their loved ones and provide whatever assistance is necessary.
"The university will not abandon its students and will give them all the assistance it can," she said.
MOSCOW, January 15 (RIA Novosti)
