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Jilly_in_VA

(9,854 posts)
Wed Mar 30, 2022, 11:56 AM Mar 2022

'Who else will do this?': Inside one convoy's frantic trek to rescue refugees in Ukraine

With a sharp exclamation, the driver of the blue Mercedes minibus slams on the brakes, slowing the 21-passenger vehicle hurtling though the late-afternoon sun toward a military checkpoint sprawled across the road.

Salam Aldeen, 39, swings open the front door, yelling hello to the soldiers guarding the barricades, ignoring the machine gun poking out from beneath camouflage netting. The soldiers' fatigues look new, but their AK-47s are battered, and many are wearing sneakers, not combat boots.

"Dobryi den’" he shouts, pointing at the 21 mothers and kids inside. "Ditey."

That word, "children" in Ukrainian, is stickered on the van's hood, and Aldeen's practiced interactions with the guards puts them at ease. A young soldier boards, rifle slung across his back, his eyes roaming over the wide-eyed children and nervous mothers crammed inside. He quickly checks the passports of the handful of men aboard, ensuring they're not Ukrainians fleeing the war amid a mandate that men of fighting age remain behind.

"Do svidaniya," the soldier says to the women and children escaping Russia's deadly invasion, stepping off.

Goodbye.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/30/humanitarian-convoy-refugees-ukraine/7202089001/
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Made me cry, thinking of how my nephew, and American citizen, his Ukrainian wife, and their toddler left Ukraine in the first days of the war. War is hell. For everyone.

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