He was taken away to safety by Fr Oleh Ladnyuk - Ukrainian, Salesian, military chaplain - who says: "Now the first thing to do is to eat, then sleep. Tomorrow we will think about the rest." After more than 12 hours of travel, Fr Oleh still wants to tell their story even though he feels exhausted; he has just returned from driving at the head of a small convoy of two mini-buses and a car loaded with compatriots. This is the story of his first journey undertaken without hesitation in search of people to take away from an absurd war. The journey began in the morning from the Salesian house in Dnipro, 200 kilometers from Donbas, where the war being waged (for now) was not much felt - yet. Fr Oleh drove more than two hundred kilometers, arrived at the meeting point, stopped for the time strictly necessary to load the people and their little luggage, and set off again.
In the hours immediately following the invasion, Fr Oleh had already seen the people astonished, stunned, in the streets, the lines of cars in search of fuel, people at ATMs to withdraw as much cash as possible; he had already heard of the first bombings and, alas, the first deaths. Then he left once again for Lysychansk, accompanied by Fr Igor Opafsky. Everything had already been organized and he says on the phone. "We’re going to the parish priest, Fr Sergio Palamarchuk. He is gathering civilians who want to leave and we are taking them away. We hope to get there. We have to go a long way and we don't know if the military will let us through. We are going with what we have."
The road from Dnipro goes through Kostjantynivka and goes eastward. And it is not an easy road in wartime. "In the opposite direction," says Fr Oleh, "we encountered rows of cars loaded with people and things: you could see that they were running away." And the closer you get to the front, the more the presence of the military is felt. "You understand that I can't say much, " he points out, "but there were many troops. When they passed close by, the danger could be felt in the air, so we tried to speed up."
Lysychansk looks like an emptied city: there is no one along the wide avenues, the houses already seem abandoned. But this is not the case. And it can be understood by the human "load" that Fr Oleh takes away. Twelve people: two girls, four boys, then some adults, an elderly lady, and a baby just over two weeks old. These are not whole families, but pieces of families that split up: fathers and mothers ensure their children are safe, then decide to stay behind - at home, under the bombs. Just a few minutes, they said.
And the journey resumes but in reverse. And it was already late at night when Fr Oleh arrived back in Dnipro. With the two Salesians this time there was also Fr Sergio, who would probably take to the road again to Lysychansk. "Because," Fr Oleh explains, "there are still many people in need there. We will certainly organize other trips."
Meanwhile, they are thinking about the next hours. "The young people," they explain, "will go to our family-home in Lviv." This evening, however, there is only the desire to breathe a sigh of relief. And there are the smiling eyes of Tymofij who sits in the arms of his mother Dascia: she is as pale as a rag, she barely smiles and doesn't leave him for a moment.
