Sashko is 16, he is from Mariupol. A few years ago, his mother died, and his father lived separately. The young man lived with his grandparents. When a full-scale war broke out, the boy’s uncle left Kyiv for Mariupol to evacuate them. However, the family could not leave for a month, so they left the surrounded city on foot.
“My parents did not want to leave. They said that Mariupol is a fortress that stands. In addition, they could not leave right away, as there was a mistake in the death certificate of Sashko’s mother, so they were waiting for something new. But they didn’t wait… There was constant shelling in the city and I was worried about the boy – he has a disability and he constantly needs to take medicine. I was thinking about only one thing: that there were medicines, that they could be obtained,” says Andriy, Sashka’s uncle.
When a rocket fell next to the house where the family lived and the windows in the apartment were blown out, they realized that it was time to leave the house and look for a safer shelter. They chose a hospital.
“We went to the hospital because we thought that there was medicine for Saško and for some reason we had the illusion that the hospital would not be shot at. There was no cure, instead there were many people who, like us, were looking for a safe place. We had no communication, no internet, we didn’t know what was happening. They knew that Mariupol was surrounded, aircraft were flying everywhere and there was shelling. Our Sashko is well done – he had no fear or panic. I will say more, he even had a girlfriend in the hospital, he fell in love,” says the boy’s uncle Andriy.
All the time, the man was looking for an opportunity to leave the city. Sashka’s father immediately refused to leave with his family. “My brother didn’t want to go. It seemed to him that not everything was so terrible. Hiding in the basement of his house. He is an adult, he makes his own decisions,” says Andriy.
Every time the family had a hope of leaving Mariupol, it was immediately extinguished.
“We were told that a convoy left and was shot at, or someone went and did not return – they understood that, most likely, he came under fire. I thought for a long time how to take the most precious ones to a safe place. I caught the connection and the Internet on the roof of the hospital, in only one place. After reading the news, I understood what was happening. I understood that we will go on foot, we have no other options. We couldn’t stay here for a long time, because Sashka had medicine left for a week,” the man recalls.
On March 23, Sashko, together with his grandmother, grandfather and uncle, left the hospital. Among their things, they had several bags and a cat in a carrier. According to the previously prepared route, we understood that we had to walk almost 30 kilometers.
“We were walking and saw that aviation was shelling factories, destroying infrastructure, razing such a beautiful city of ours to the ground. We walked and on both sides we saw the bodies of killed people. So imagine: a bench, people were sitting on it, and they remained sitting like that – dead. We saw exactly one hundred bodies on the way,” Andrii shares.
The family walked all day, shelling and explosions accompanied them constantly.
“While we were walking, shelling and explosions did not stop. We are used to them. In the evening, we stopped to rest in one of the central buildings, where we were fed and slept. The next day, we met a man in a car on the road who gave us a lift. However, we walked again to the Russian checkpoint. We checked our documents and things there. From there we went to Mangush, and from Mangush to Berdyansk. There they were waiting for a bus to Zaporizhzhia. The road there was terribly difficult. 16 roadblocks, at each of which the bus was stopped and everyone was checked,” the man recalls.
In Zaporizhzhia, Andriy began looking for medical facilities where he could get medicine for his nephew. Medicines were found in Lviv.
“We didn’t think about it for a long time, because the medicine is vitally necessary for the child. Already in Lviv, having received the medicine, he simply decided to walk around the city. The city is so beautiful that we stayed here. I have an apartment in Kyiv, part of my work is there, but now we are here, I am doing business here and I really fell in love with this city,” says Andriy.
In Lviv, the man turned to the “Children’s Service” office, because many issues needed to be clarified, in particular, issues with documents that they did not receive at that time in Mariupol. After receiving help and consultation, he started the process of registering the guardianship of his nephew, since there was no contact with the boy’s father – he remained in Mariupol in the temporarily occupied territory.
“You have a wonderful team at Children’s Services. These are people who not only do their job, but are also understanding and very kind. They helped with everything that depended on them, everything was done very quickly,” says Andriy.
The man dreams that Sashko will graduate from university, be successful and live under a peaceful sky.
“This is now my child, and my duty is to do everything in my power to ensure that the boy has a good education and provide him with everything he needs. Now I’m collecting all the documents for guardianship,” says the man.
“They helped the family get a death certificate for their mother, which they couldn’t get in Mariupol because of shelling. Sashko was registered with us, now we are preparing documents for the uncle to become the boy’s guardian. The young man is in good hands, we are very happy for him,” said the “Children’s Service” department of the Lviv City Council.