KIEV - Julia Volok says some of her fellow passengers expected a warm welcome on their arrival in Ukraine after finally being evacuated from the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic in China's Hubei province this week.

Instead Volok, a 26-year-old Chinese-language student, and her fellow evacuees found their buses being pelted with projectiles by protesters on Thursday as they approached the sanatorium where they have started a mandatory two-week quarantine.

"We heard the window smash and everyone fell down into the aisle," she told Reuters by phone.