Nearly 150 Spaniards evacuated from Ukraine land in Barajas after a 52-hour road trip between Kiev and the border with Poland
Their faces revealed a mixture of sorrow and fear for what they suffered and hope for not having to continue suffering it, but above all of extreme tiredness. The three hours on plane 2881 between Krakow and Madrid have literally flown by compared to the 52 it took on secondary roads from Kiev to the Polish border. About 150 Spaniards evacuated from Ukraine have put an end to the worst nightmare of their lives and have landed this Monday at 6:00 in the morning in Barajas thanks to the two convoys organized by the embassy and escorted by the GEO.
Antonio and María were in Kiev with their eldest daughter to be parents again by surrogacy. The situation began to get complicated hours after the birth of the baby, so they did not take long to call the embassy. “They told us to take the essentials, to carry a maximum of 10 kilos per person and to go running,” says the father of the family. The trip to the border was “exhausting”, especially for the little ones, whom they tried to entertain in the most improvised ways.
“We will tell our newborn daughter that she survived a war,” Antonio promises, eager to get home and forget what he lived through. Victoria, Ukrainian by birth and wife of a Catalan, who has left her entire family in Kiev, will hardly be able to do it. “Every hour I look at my mobile and ask my mother if she is still alive, how is my sister…”, she says. She is seven months pregnant, she has left her country and now she will end up in Barcelona with Roger, but with the hope of returning: «I hope to see my family again».
A wedding canceled by the war
Neither Roger nor Victoria expected that the conflict could reach the Ukrainian capital itself: «We had just bought an apartment near the airport, it is in the front line of fire. A rocket hit just three blocks from our house.” Neither did Julia, also a Ukrainian, who had already planned to move to Spain before the war began. “She would never have thought that she would end up coming for something like this,” laments the young woman, who demands support for her country from the entire international community.
The outbreak of the conflict has laminated plans for the future, but also for the present. Vicente’s daughter, who lives in a city 10 kilometers from Kiev, was scheduled to get married on Saturday and the whole family had come to witness the happiest moment of her life. “I don’t know what will become of my tuxedo”, she tries to relativize her father. About to catch the bus, Lorena and Sebastián, Spanish and Colombian respectively, remember how they saw the fighters from the window of their house in the middle of the night, but now they only think about resting.
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