With her five-month-old baby, Sasha fled her city of kyiv and eventually found refuge with a host family in Alleur (Ans). The young woman left her husband and family in Ukraine. Today, Sasha follows from a distance, and with a heavy heart, the war that is destroying her country. We met her.
Her eyes shine, her words pierce us… Sasha, 29, tells us about the day that changed her life. “It was 5:30 in the morning, I heard the bombs in kyiv for the first time, so I woke up my husband. I told him: ‘It starts here too, something has to be done‘. I did not know what to do. I had a bad feeling“, she confides.
My parents, my brother, my husband are still there
Difficult to find the words to describe this cursed day, the one where she must say goodbye to her own family, without really knowing where to go. “I’m still scared today because my parents, my brother, my husband are still there. And I don’t know what will happen to them. You know, it’s difficult. It’s hard to tell yourself that here we are safe, but over there, there are all the others. And not only my parents, all Ukrainians are in danger“, explains the refugee.
Sasha found refuge 2,000 kilometers from kyiv, with Francine and Joseph. With them, she is safe. Her, but also what she holds dearest: her baby. During the interview, he is resting upstairs, also tired from this interminable journey. At the end of his nap, we go up to the little one’s room, following Sasha. “He’s my son, Allan. 5 months ago“, confides the mother. “I think we changed trains six times before arriving in Belgium. There were lots of children of all ages. They were asking their moms to come home, but how to tell them… it was impossible“, she adds, her voice hoarse.
I hear there are still sirens behind you, did you quickly go back down to the cellar?
Far from the war, Sasha has been trying to rebuild herself for six days now. His new family doesn’t speak English, but they manage to communicate. “We see that she is much more serene and that she also knows that she is safe in this country. To us she’s like the girl of the house“, says Francine.
We attend the meal. A moment of calm, abruptly interrupted by news from kyiv. Sasha grabs her phone. “Hello dear. I hear there are still sirens behind you, did you quickly go back down to the cellar?“, asks Sasha.
After the call, we continue the conversation with her. Sasha also thinks of her son, safe but far from his dad. “He needs his father. At his age, it’s important to understand who his mom and dad are. But we try to keep our spirits up“, explains the mother.
However, it is impossible to project beyond the next few hours. The only thing that counts for her is the survival of her family, which for the moment has remained at the heart of the fighting.