Tunisian students organize to leave war-torn Ukraine
Audio 01:26
A bus evacuating refugees from Ukraine on February 26, 2022 (Illustrative image).
© Visar Kryeziu/AP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
About 800 Tunisian students are still stranded in Ukraine.
The first evacuations took place on Friday evening, February 25, but many still need to be evacuated to neighboring countries.
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Tunisian students are still present everywhere in Ukraine.
Part is in Odessa, in the south of the country.
This is the case of Miriam.
This Saturday morning, she was able to take a bus to Romania.
“
We are around 25 on the bus,
says Myriam.
There are Algerians and Moroccans too.
We even have animals with us, two dogs and a cat.
We couldn't let them go.
We had to fight for them to let us go up.
They wanted to send us to Moldova
.
We were afraid of being stuck there, there are no planes.
We haven't slept for four days.
We were about twenty to be hidden in a basement.
We had very little information.
»
Myriam and the other Tunisians in Odessa were able to organize their evacuation with the help of Amine Smiti.
He works for a private agency which helps Tunisian students to settle abroad.
But since the start of the war in Ukraine, he has been a member of the crisis unit set up by the Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Amine Smiti explains how he organizes the departure of students and the difficulties he faces: “
In coordination with the security services in Ukraine, I was able to have two safe routes to evacuate through Moldova and Romania.
It is difficult to find buses, because the soldiers have requisitioned them to round up the civilians who have joined.
With my brother, and on our own, we managed to find buses, taxis and private cars.
The ambassadors and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are responsible for ensuring that Tunisians do not spend more than four or five hours at the borders.
No one got stuck there.
Without their intervention no Tunisian would have been able to leave Ukraine.
»
Complicated situation for the Tunisians of Dnipro
On Friday, thirty Tunisians were able to reach Moldova.
Today, Amine Smiti says he can evacuate another hundred.
Odessa students are all expected to be evacuated by the end of the weekend.
But the situation is more complicated for the 227 Tunisians stranded in Dnipro.
As the city is located more than 900 km from the neighboring borders, it is difficult to ensure a safe route for their evacuation.
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Tunisia
Ukraine
Refugees