Video Shows Ukrainian Mother Embracing A Stranger Who Brought Her Children Across The Border To Safety
The children are without their father, but he trusted the right stranger.
Youtube Among all of the destruction and death caused by the needless and unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine by Russia are glimmers of humanity.
Whether it is in the form of civilians taking up arms and doing what they can to protect their homes or other countries accepting refugees with warm food and open arms, it seems that light truly does shine brightest against the deepest dark.
As many refugees try to escape Ukraine while others are obligated to stay and conscript, children have been forced to make the journey alone or find safe passage with a stranger.
A Ukrainian mother was reunited with her children after a stranger brought them across the border.
Natalia Ablayeva is a 58-year-old Ukrainian woman who found herself in an odd position while trying to escape the fighting brought on by the Russian invasion.
Natalia came across a 38-year-old man who was also fleeing the fighting when he was told that he would need to stay to participate in the defense.
The rule states that all men between the ages of 18 and 60, but there was a complication.
The man was fleeing the country with his two young children.
Despite traveling with his children with the intention of meeting his wife who was coming back from Italy, Ukrainian authorities were insistent that he had to stay. The man agreed and turned to Ablayeva, a stranger, for help.
The man asked Ablayeva to take his children across the border to their mother while he stayed behind to defend Ukraine.
Ablayeva agreed to take the children the man had placed the ultimate trust in a total stranger out of desperation and Ablayeva had no intentions of letting the man down.
The last thing that he did before they parted ways was give Ablayeva his wife’s phone number so that they could meet up once they were safely out of the country-turned-warzone.
The 58-year-old Ukrainian woman recounted her encounter with the children’s father, saying, “Their father simply handed over the two kids to me, and trusted me, giving me their passports to bring them over.”
The man was right to trust Natalia Ablayeva.
Ablayeva and the two children successfully made it over the border and reunited the children with their mother, 33-year-old Anna Semyuk.
The heart-melting scene of their reunion was captured on video which has since gone viral.
In the video Semyuk can be seen embracing her children and then turning to Ablayeva, who she had never previously met and hugging her as well.
Many are sharing in rejoicing over the reunion of Semyuk with her children, but the whole situation still has a melancholy tone.
Children are without fathers, spouses are without their partners. Families are separated by war, people are dying every day and families are losing loved one’s because of the Russian government’s insistence on perpetuating a needless, bloody war on Ukrainian soil and it needs to stop.
If you want to help the people of Ukraine, please donate to United Help Ukraine who are providing donations, food and medical supplies to displaced Ukrainians.
Dan O'Reilly is a writer who covers news, politics, and social justice. Follow him on Twitter.