At least one of the 42 Jamaican students studying medicine in Ukraine is hitting back against suggestions that they didn’t want to take up the Government’s loan offer to get out of the conflict-torn country ahead of a full-scale invasion launched by Russia early this morning (February 24).

The student, who goes by the username @du_soleilxx, took to Twitter to criticise the Government’s treatment of her peers.

She has also declared she would not be speaking to reporters, expressing disgust with “sensationalist” media when people’s lives are at stake.

In a Twitter thread, @du_soleilxx argued that, when contacted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, the students told officials that some of the Ukrainian universities had not yet taken the danger of war seriously and threatened them with expulsion if they left to return to Jamaica.

“We told the MFAFT (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade) that some schools were not observing the threats and that some JA students were told they would be expelled if they left the country. We asked the MFAFT to personally write to these schools to have us withdrawn as with more authority they could better assist,” user @du_soleilxx wrote.

According to her, the ministry, while still urging the students to take up the loan offer to leave Ukraine, expressed a reluctance to officially write to the universities in question.

Understanding this, she said the students brainstormed again, this time asking whether they could get ‘transfer assurances’ to continue their studies at an institution in Jamaica where applicable. They reportedly got no response to this from the Jamaican Government.

“They told us they wouldn’t want to do that and then we end up being expelled with no where to go [academically]. WE then suggested them doing liaison w/ medical schools in JA to take us in the event that we are expelled,” she said.

User @du_soleilxx said she made it out of Ukraine safely but not without many challenges. She noted, however, her disappointment in the Government and media for not properly reflecting the decisions faced by the students who remain stuck in Ukraine.

“They didn’t add these things in their news articles to make it look like students were just sitting down. So coupled with a travel loan, students were also fearful of losing thousands of dollars w/ no concrete evidence the government would help us if we got expelled,” the Jamaican continued.

“Still we valued our lives more and as much as we could, bearing in mind that due the pandemic some students couldn’t return home to renew documents, as many of us that could leave, LEFT,” she added.

The Kamina Johnson Smith-led ministry, in a statement yesterday, indicated that only seven Jamaican students took up the Government’s travel loan offer.

Smith noted further that some students have decided to stay, others have made private arrangements to head elsewhere in the region while the rest have either left or are in the process of leaving.

User @du_soleilxx, who safely left Ukraine but had not indicated where she was currently, took great issue with Minister Smith’s comparative actions to that of officials from the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, when all Jamaican students were asking for was an official communication to the schools they were enrolled.

Responding directly to Smith, the user wrote, “We simply asked your governing body to write to our schools, that’s all we asked. You spoke to news outlets instead”.

“As you can see, verbal “recommendations” and “encouragement” alone cannot properly get us out of an Eastern European country. We needed action,” @du_soleilxx added.

• RELATED: Jamaican students in Ukraine didn’t take up offer to get them out, says Johnson Smith