Young Egyptian rescues Arab families trapped in Ukraine

CAIRO — Islam al-Ashiri, an Egyptian who works as a tour guide in Ukraine, won high praise from social media users recently after he helped several families flee the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, which is under Russian attack, to the city of Lviv near the Polish border.

Ashiri, 27, told Al-Monitor that he initially managed to rescue a Lebanese man, and then an Iraqi woman and her four children after their house was bombed by the Russians. By the time he got to them they had run out of food.

In addition, he rescued a Yemeni family and transported a Saudi man and his pregnant wife to the border with Poland.

Despite managing to reach the border under difficult circumstances, Ashiri chose not to leave Ukraine himself. Each time he would return to Kyiv to save more families and children. 

He said, “The most difficult operation was rescuing a family of four; two Yemeni children called Karim and Amir Amr Abdel Karim with their sister who holds Egyptian nationality and their Ukrainian mother. The family was in the village of Chernihiv Oblast, which is under heavy bombardment by the Russian forces.”

Ashiri said he was shot at twice by the Russian forces on his way to save the Yemeni family, but he continued and did stop until he reached the village to pick up the family. “When I got there they were not ready to leave the house, because they had lost hope that I would make it. They assumed I had been injured or killed,” he added.

He noted, “There is close to 600 kilometers [373 miles] between the city of Lviv and the capital Kyiv, which made the task of evacuating families more difficult in light of the curfew, bombardments and road closures.”

It took him two days to get to the Yemeni family and two days to drive them to the Polish border.

Ashiri added, “The road leading to the house of the Yemeni family was full of snipers and Russian forces. I had been warned by the children’s mother of being targeted.”

On his way, he saw bodies in the streets.

In addition to the praise that Ashiri received on social media for his courage and determination, Yemen’s Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed called him to thank him for saving the two Yemeni children, expressing his “appreciation for [Ashiri’s] brave stance and for putting his life at risk in order to save the lives of the two Yemeni children.”

Asked about the humanitarian corridors to allow for the evacuation of civilians, Ashiri said that there is no such thing on the ground, as civilians are exposed to sporadic Russian bombing.

A few days ago, Moscow announced a cease-fire to allow the evacuation of civilians, but the Ukrainian authorities accused the Russian army of violating the cease-fire and bombing routes dedicated to the evacuation of civilians.

Ashiri said that some local residents had invited him to spend the night and others had guided him to secondary roads instead of the roads that are exposed to Russian bombardment or where Ukrainian checkpoints have been erected. He explained that he received warnings from the Ukrainian forces of being targeted should he fail to respect the imposed curfew.

He praised the aid he received from the locals and said it facilitated his mission in saving families. A Lebanese businessman gave him two cars, one of which broke down after he crossed long distances. The Lebanese man refused to receive any money for the cars and told him that there was a third car ready for use should the second one he was using break down.

He explained that his own car was hit by the Russian bombing, so he resorted to the cars of the Lebanese man who owns a tour company in Ukraine.

Asked about the video circulating of him with children singing Egyptian songs, Ashiri said, “They are the four children of the Iraqi family. [I] sang with them to reassure them because they were afraid of the Russian planes hovering over us while driving to the Polish border.”

He added, “I was accompanied by Egyptian friends on the Polish border, when I saw on Snapchat a distress call from an Iraqi woman with four children in the city of Cherkasy, as her house had been hit by the Russian bombing and she could not get the children out.”

On March 9, Egypt’s Minister of Immigration and Expatriate Affairs Nabila Makram called Ashiri to check on him. She said in a Facebook post that he is still providing humanitarian support in Ukraine.

Although Ashiri prefers to stay in Ukraine and continue to save other families, he is facing pressure from his family back home to leave Ukraine due to concerns over his safety.

When Al-Monitor contacted Ashiri, he was on his way again to Kyiv to try and rescue an Egyptian imam trapped in a mosque as well as a Lebanese family. The imam reached out to him due to the intensification of the Russian bombing.

Ashiri said he knows full well the roads in Ukraine because of his work as a tourist guide, and explained that “a lot of people are reaching out to him for help following reports whereby he managed to save a number of people flee the Russian bombing.”