"The hardest thing is everything we saw on the road, people who died and had nothing to do with this whole situation," Shakhtar Donetsk striker Pedrinho told reporters upon his arrival. Tuesday at Guarulhos airport, near Sao Paulo.

"I had my four-month-old daughter in my arms and I just wanted her to be okay. It was horror, terrible images, destroyed cities. It remains etched in my mind," added the 23-year-old player. years trained at Corinthians in Sao Paulo and passed by Benfica Lisbon.

"All I want now is to spend time with my family. Every time I spoke to them, I said goodbye to them, because I thought this might be the last time I I heard their voice," he said.

"Sound of the Bombs"

When the Russian offensive on Ukraine began last Thursday, they took refuge with women and children in a hotel in the capital, where they were joined by their compatriot Vitinho and the Uruguayan Carlos De Pena, players of Dynamo Kiev.

Before the start of the conflict, there were about 500 Brazilians in Ukraine.

There are now only around 100 left, according to the Brazilian embassy in Kiev.

"Everything exploded overnight. Thursday morning we were at home and we started to hear the sound of bombs, fighter jets. It was the start of the nightmare," De Pena told AFP. 29 years old, in Guarulhos, while waiting for his flight to Montevideo.

“It was complicated to organize an evacuation because there were a lot of desperate and fleeing people, the Russian troops were approaching the capital,” he said, revealing that he was hiding in the toilets. to cry every time he received messages from relatives.

"We heard explosions all the time. The food started to run out. It was hard to keep calm," added Marlon, a 26-year-old Skakhtar defender, who was the footballers' spokesperson in a video posted on the media. social networks to ask for help from the Brazilian government.

Night Train

Confined to the hotel for three days, the players and their families ended up making their way to Kiev central station in a hurry, thanks to an escort set up by UEFA and the Ukrainian Football Federation.

They had just been told that the situation "was going to get worse", according to Pedrinho.

It was the start of a 17-hour journey by train and 15 hours by bus, crossing the border to reach Romania, from where they could fly to Brazil.

"When we left, it was very dark, we didn't know what we might meet on the way. We traveled at night, when the conflicts are more intense," said Maycon, a 24-year-old midfielder from Shakhtar, who made this difficult journey with his parents, his wife and their two children.

"I was just asking everyone to keep calm so that my children don't feel the same fear as us," said his partner Lyarah Vojnovic Barberan.

The professional future of Brazilian footballers who play in Ukraine remains unclear, all local competitions being suspended, but they are thinking above all of their teammates who have remained in the country at war.

"Ukraine is suffering a lot and it makes us very sad, we have great friends there, I hope everything will get better," said Maycon.

© 2022 AFP