Indian medical students caught in yet another geopolitical conflict, this time in Iran

Mr Faizan Nabi, a student at the Kerman University of Medical Sciences in south-eastern Iran, is uncertain when he will return to Iran - if at all - and finish his studies. Read more at straitstimes.com.

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NEW DELHI – When Mr Faizan Nabi left for Iran to study medicine in February 2025, he had hopes for a bright future. But in the passage of a year, those dreams now lie in tatters. He has had to flee the country and return to Kashmir in India, not once but twice.

The 22-year-old, a student at the Kerman University of Medical Sciences in south-eastern Iran, left the country on Feb 23, following an advisory from India asking its nationals to leave as war clouds loomed over the region.

Five days later on Feb 28, Israel and the United States struck Iran, prompting retaliation from Tehran and plunging West Asia into yet another deadly bout of conflict.

Back in June 2025, Mr Nabi was also among 3,597 Indian nationals – more than half of them medical students – who were evacuated from Iran during the 12-day war that began after Israel bombed Iran in a surprise attack.

“I had dreamt of becoming the first medical doctor from my family, but those hopes seem shattered now,” he told The Straits Times on the phone from his home in Srinagar. “I can’t even muster the courage to watch the news,” he added, “because I can’t bear to see a land I have lived in be destroyed.”