Local family shares how parents fled Ukraine, calls for US to grant refugee status to Ukrainians

They lived within the capital metropolis of Kyiv and first escaped to a metropolis close to the western border, after which on to Warsaw, Poland.

“It was very arduous for us to get them out of there,” Natasha Stevens mentioned.

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Two sisters – one from St Charles and the opposite from the Milwaukee space – went to Warsaw to fulfill their mother and father, a household buddy and two canine.

“It was very disturbing, that is all I can say,” Stevens mentioned. “It was very, very disturbing.”

Volunteers drove their mother and father from Kyiv to the Polish border. A cousin nonetheless in Kyiv retrieved passports that had been forgotten within the rush to depart.

Natasha Stevens was in a position to return by means of O’Hare 4 days in the past along with her mother, who had a vacationer visa. However Yaroslava Dunn stays in Poland making an attempt to get a visa for her father. The retired faculty professor has most cancers and would not communicate Polish. They could not go away him alone.

“This has been an especially difficult expertise for us, Leah, and we understand we’re one of many extra fortunate ones,” Dunn mentioned.

Friday they’ve an appointment to attempt to get a vacationer visa for his or her father. The sisters need the U.S. to grant refugee standing to Ukrainians so Individuals can host family members or strangers fleeing the conflict extra rapidly.

“How is it doable that the system will not be anyhow expedited considering that there’s full blown conflict?” Dunn mentioned.

Her father added in Ukrainian as his daughter translated: “I hope that Ukraine will win. At the very least I hope they won’t lose, they will not quit. However I do know this victory can be paid with blood.”

Their mom, Natalya, is a youngsters’s guide writer. She says she’s begun writing a narrative about what’s occurring in Ukraine, and he or she desires the fairy story ending to be true for her household and for different Ukrainian households.