“I can't escape” The reality of the family who continues to be at the mercy of the conflict April 21 16:18

"I don't want my children to know the horrors of war,"

says many parents with children who have fled Ukraine from Russia's military invasion.

Some of these evacuees had moved to Ukraine to get out of the conflict.

This is the story of a family who was supposed to break the negative chain of "conflict" but was involved again.

(Taichi Soga, Jerusalem Branch)

Same experience as grandpa

This photo was taken on a train passing through Germany to evacuate Ukraine.

In the picture are Mr. Nuzuha Badawi (26, right) and his sister, Mr. Yasmine (16, left).

Nuzuha took her sister and her 4-year-old son Adam to evacuate to Sweden in Scandinavia for about a week.

Nuzuha and his colleagues lived in Poltava, central Ukraine.

However, in late February, when the Russian military invasion began, I immediately heard the obituary of my relatives.

I heard that one of my relatives died in the attack of the Russian army.

"This is dangerous,"

Nuzuha immediately decided to evacuate and jumped on the train with her family.

Nuzha Badawi

"We immediately got on the train with only the luggage we were using in the evacuation shelter. We couldn't say goodbye to our relatives or brother, and we had no idea what would happen next. I think this was exactly what my grandfather experienced over 70 years ago. "

Grandfather became a refugee in the war over 70 years ago

What does it mean to have the same experience as my grandfather?

In the background is the reality of this world of repeated conflicts.

Nuzuha is a descendant of the Palestinians who fled the war more than 70 years ago and is a refugee by nature.

Grandfather Hamies once lived in Jaffa, a Mediterranean town with ocean blue waters in front of him.

However, in 1948, Israel unilaterally declared independence on the land.

The First Middle East War broke out with neighboring Arab countries, and 700,000 Palestinians who had lived there until then fled the war and became refugees.

Hamies was one of them.

And the evacuation destination was "Gaza Strip".

Currently, 2 million people live in the Gaza Strip, and it is also called a "ceilingless prison" because it is surrounded by fences and evil, and 70% of them are of the refugees and their descendants. I am a Palestinian refugee.

* "Gaza Conflict 2021 What happened at that time?"

If you would like to know more about the Gaza Strip, please visit this page from this link.

I should escape the conflict ...

Nuzuha's father, Muhammad, is a doctor.

Immediately after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, Muhammad studied abroad at the medical school of a university in Poltava, central Ukraine.

Born and raised in a refugee family, he was never rich, but he desperately studied hard and became a doctor.

Then, he met Ukrainian Aryona and got married there.

He returned to the Gaza Strip and raised three children, including Mr. Nuzuha.

Aryona has become so accustomed to living in the Gaza Strip that she speaks almost perfect Arabic.

However, in 2007, when the Islamic organization Hamas came into effective control of the Gaza Strip, conflicts with Israel began to repeat.

The Gaza Strip was frequently bombed by Israel's latest fighters and invaded by tanks, often damaging Mr. Nuzha's home.

So four years ago, Nuzuha decided to leave the Gaza Strip where he was born and raised and move to Ukraine, his mother's hometown, with his parents and siblings.

I wanted to break the negative chain from the time of his grandfather.

However, this time in Ukraine, which was supposed to have crossed to escape the conflict, he was involved in the conflict again.

Her mother, Aryona, who decided to return to her native Ukraine with Nuzuha, describes her thoughts at the time as follows.

Mother Aryona

"I moved to Ukraine because I didn't want my children to experience war anymore. I educated my children in a quiet environment and lived a human life like many in the world. But in Ukraine the girls were involved in a conflict. I still can't believe what's happening there. "

I wanted my boy to grow up without knowing the conflict

Nuzuha grew up speaking Russian with her mother, a Russian Ukrainian.

Taking advantage of my skills, I was working in Ukraine to teach Russian to international students.

But she says she wasn't hesitant to flee Ukraine, saying she's now the mother of a child and she doesn't want her son to know about the conflict.

Mr. Nuzuha

"I myself have experienced conflicts in Gaza many times, but this time it was the hardest I have ever had because I have a boy. My son Adam has not experienced conflicts in Gaza. I didn't want Adam to feel the fear of conflict, so I immediately evacuated from Ukraine and didn't explain to him what had happened. "

War is chasing ...

Nuzuha and his friends are now living in a relative in Sweden, but their younger brother, Hamies (20), is worried.

(In the Arab world, there is a tradition of inheriting the name of his grandfather)

After moving to Ukraine, Hamies went on to college in Poltava.

He was so good that he was exempt from tuition fees and was studying at the Faculty of Engineering with the aim of becoming an engineer in the future.

However, because Mr. Hamies has Ukrainian nationality, although he will not be drafted, he will not be able to evacuate abroad due to the departure restrictions of adult men.

He still remains in Poltava and lives in evacuation, but he was also worried about what would happen to Ukraine after the military invasion.

Mr. Hamies:

"I thought the war was over after I escaped from Gaza, but I still feel like I'm in Gaza. It's like the war is chasing me. I spend a lot of time rebuilding my life here. I've been calling and want to stay in Ukraine, but I'm worried that I don't know if a stable ceasefire will be formed in the future. "

After the family

When Russia's military invasion began, Nuzha's parents, Muhammad and Aryona, had to stay there because they had returned to the Gaza Strip for work reasons.

Meanwhile, the daughters fled to Sweden, the son was evacuated in Ukraine, and the family fell apart.

I met my parents in the Gaza Strip in late March.

The two then moved from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and obtained visas for Poland.

Then, in mid-April, I arrived in Sweden via Poland and finally reunited with Mr. Nuzuha and others.

It was almost two months after the military invasion began.

However, Mr. Hamies is still in Ukraine.

From now on, only Muhammad is thinking of returning to Ukraine soon to meet his son Hamies.

The Nuzuha family just moved to Ukraine with the desire to get out of the negative chain of being involved in conflict and to have a stable life as much as possible.

However, Russia's violence has upset those lives again and has torn family ties.

The "war" in Ukraine is not the first war in the 21st century.

Each of the words that Mr. Nuzuha and his colleagues speaks points to us the harsh reality of the world where conflicts have been repeated.

Taichi Soga ,

Director of Jerusalem Bureau

After working at Asahikawa Bureau and International Affairs Department, Jerusalem Branch from 2020