“The situation is very terrible” in the Ukrainian city of Bucha. “People were being shot on the street and in their yards while they were cooking.”
This is how he told the journalists this Monday Raisa Bacal, a 61-year-old woman with a head injurywho, along with 50 other compatriots, have arrived in Logroño on a bus from Bucha, where they met hundreds of bodies after the withdrawal of Russian troops; and some from Dombas.
Bacal has also suffered the effects of this war on his flesh, as he reveals a bandage on his head, which covers the wounds caused by the glass of a window in his house that flew out as a result of “some shots”, an experience after which He has been shown with “a lot of hope”, but, first, he wants to “rest”.
He has indicated that he liked the trip on a bus chartered by the Riojan businessman Félix Revuelta and the NGO Coopera to Spain, which, in his eyes, “is similar to western Ukraine.”
One of the few men who have traveled to the Rioja capital is Mihajlo Brudin, a 17-year-old discus thrower who, in statements to Efe, has been “very grateful for the help and for the opportunity to leave the Ukraine and be able to train” in Spain.
“We are hopeful that the war in Ukraine will end soon. We are here, but our hearts are there”, remarked this young athlete from Donbás, who has been able to contact Coopera thanks to the Riojan athletics coach Marcos Moreno.
Moreno has also been present at this reception and has highlighted to the media that he met Brudin through the Instagram social network and decided to help him leave Ukraine.
The firefighter and collaborator of the Riojan NGO Coopera Carlos Bacaicoa excitedly remarked during an informative meeting that the change in the face of the refugees has been “spectacular” upon arrival in Logroño compared to when he picked them up in the Ukraine.
“They get on the bus, they look at each other and many of them don’t know each other at all. I’ve been a firefighter in extreme situations for many years and I spent 30 seconds saying ‘what am I doing here now with 51 people who don’t understand me at all and who have just come of a war?’ and I said ‘let’s get ahead’ “, he has recounted her.
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Trying to hold back tears, he indicated that the best thing about this experience is that, upon arriving in Logroño, the refugees have given him “thank you” for having been the one who has gone for them.
“We were lucky that we went hand in hand with some nuns from an Argentine congregation, from the Incarnate Word. They speak Spanish and Ukrainian and they approached us and they told us who to take us with,” he said.