BHOPAL: Two senior Unani medicine doctors in Bhopal are waiting with bated breath for the safe return of their children, both medical students, who are stranded in war-ravaged Iran.

Dr Ehsan Azmi, a medical officer at Bhopal’s Government HSZH Unani Medical College, is anxious for the safe return of his daughter Areej Ehsan, a second-year (fourth semester) MBBS student. Equally concerned is Dr Shahid Khan, a medical officer at Unani Shifakhana-Bhopal, whose son Mohd Haris Khan is in the eighth semester (fourth year) of the same course.

Both Areej and Mohd Haris are pursuing their MBBS at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran.

“Before Monday, my daughter said it seemed they were surviving in the jaws of death and destruction. But from Monday, the Indian Embassy in Tehran started working on a war footing to rescue the Indian students via the Indian Medical Students Association in the Iranian capital. We were particularly concerned about the safety of children, as there are reports that some of the nuclear scientists who were killed in the barrage of Israeli strikes, were actually from the Shahid Beheshti University only,” Dr Azmi told TNIE on Friday.

Originally from Azamgarh district in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Dr Azmi added, “We had a slight sigh of relief when we came to know about the students, including my daughter, having been shifted by the Indian Embassy from war-ravaged Tehran to Qom city (around 160 km from Tehran) on June 15.”