With bombs dropping nearby, these Delaware parents faced a choice: stay or leave Ukraine?
WILMINGTON, Del. – It was 5 a.m. on Feb. 24 and Atnre Alleyne woke to the sound of bombs – Russia had just begun its invasion into Ukraine.
Alleyne and his family were living in a village about 15 miles outside of Kyiv, the country’s capital, for over a year when the sound of the blasts permeated their home. Alleyne woke up in a foggy state of confusion before realizing what the sound was.
“Your stomach just turned,” he said.
Following the intense booms, Alleyne and his wife scoured local and U.S. media outlets to find out what was happening as they began planning to leave their home and move west. Fortunately, their children – two, three and seven years old – had not been awakened by the booms.
Alleyne co-founded TeenSHARP, an organization in Wilmington aimed at helping underrepresented students in higher education, alongside his wife, Tatiana Poladko in 2009. The family moved to Ukraine, where Poladko is from, in Jan. 2021 but they continue their work in Delaware.
Alleyne and his family were forced to flee from their home in Ukraine and commence a weeklong journey into Poland, witnessing scenes of destruction, heartbreak and camaraderie along the way.
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Thus far, one million children have been forced to flee Ukraine, according to a tweet from UNICEF spokesperson James Elder. Overall, more than 2 million people have fled Ukraine into neighboring countries since the invasion began, according to the UN Refugee Agency.
Russian missile strikes have killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed residential neighborhoods in Ukraine’s biggest cities. Following a third round of negotiations on March 7, the first safe corridor meant to help civilians escape the country opened March 8.
Previous efforts to establish safe corridors failed as Russian forces continued shelling the country.
Fleeing Ukraine
Bombings continued throughout the first day of the invasion, leading Alleyne to nervously assess the closeness of the blasts to his home, often asking his kids to turn the TV volume down so he could listen for sounds of planes or helicopters whirring nearby.
“That was terrifying,” he said. “They didn't feel close, at least the first day, but close enough to be terrifying.”
That day, as Alleyne and his children walked back from picking up provisions at the store, a fleet of about 30 helicopters flew low over their heads as flares dropped down from the sky, Alleyne said. The terrified family took cover as the children screamed and the helicopters passed overhead.
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“That first day was just like paralysis,” he said. “You don't expect the level of depravity, the level of evil and the level of terrorism.”
After Russian forces seized control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, about two hours from Alleyne’s home, the Ukrainian military began to set up barricades in town as the fighting inched closer and closer.
The entire family slept in the same room with Alleyne going to bed with his clothes on and passports in his pocket. During the night, Alleyne would listen to the nearby bomb blasts and consider whether or not to wake his family up in order to take shelter under the staircase.
“You're sometimes hearing blasts, but you're like, 'OK, those are far enough where I don't have to wake my kids up' [...] but at some point you started hearing things that felt closer,” Alleyne said.
Once the blasts got increasingly close to their home, the family huddled underneath the staircase as Alleyne’s 81-year-old father-in-law took shelter in the bathroom.
As bombs continued to fall nearby, Alleyne and his family had to figure out a way to move west without a car at their disposal. They scoured local Facebook groups for any means of transportation and the safest routes to take across the country.
Fortunately, a single mother from their children’s school had space in her car to fit the family of six as they attempted to flee the village. While it was an extremely difficult decision to leave their home, the family decided to take their chances on the road instead of staying and potentially facing shortages of food and power.
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“I just can’t be a sitting duck here,” Alleyne remembers thinking.
“You could stay here and potentially be stuck with no food, potentially be in the middle of a battle, be terrified every day, or you can try to take your chances and get on the road.”
The family of six packed into the car and began driving to Zhytomyr, a city about three hours away. The ride was punctuated with reroutes and military checkpoints as roads suffered heavy explosion damage, Alleyne said.
“That ride was terrifying,” he said.
After spending a day in the city, Alleyne and his family boarded an overnight train toward Kovel, Ukraine. After sunset, all of the lights on the train were turned off so as not to draw any attention before it arrived at a completely dark train station full of people.
The family then took another train to Lviv, Ukraine, where they stayed for a few days before getting a ride to the area near the border with Poland. The driver dropped the family off as close as he could to the border crossing.
Even so, a three-hour walk to the actual border remained.
Husbands and sons said emotional goodbyes to their wives, mothers and daughters as they waited in long lines to be able to cross the border. Ukrainian men are not able to leave the country.
After waiting in line, the adults of the family all shouldered a few bags and embarked on the hours-long walk alongside a caravan of others who hoped to cross into Poland. Shortly before arriving at the border, the family booked a hotel stay and slept one last night in Ukraine.
The next morning, the family began their “reluctant” trip into Poland where they crossed relatively smoothly before catching a bus to Przemyśl. The family then arrived at a department store that was being used to house refugees.
The floor of the building was covered with people who were either eating or sleeping, Alleyne said.
“Tears just came to my eyes,” he said. “The senselessness of all these people who are just displaced and disrupted and traumatized.”
The family finally took a train to Warsaw where they had arranged hotel accommodations thanks to an organization helping refugees in Poland. Alleyne and his family remain in Warsaw and are considering their next steps.
“Other than it being just tiring and long you know, we were considerably fortunate,” Alleyne said.
With the help of his Wilmington organization, Alleyne now wants to help Ukraine while also providing support for recovery and reconstruction efforts.
Follow José Ignacio on Twitter: @joseicastaneda.