In the last week, the cell phone barely left Letícia Hack Bahi’s hand. On Monday (6), the first rumors emerged about the death in combat of her brother, André Luis Hack Bahi, in the Ukrainian War. On Thursday (9), the official confirmation came.
Just over 24 hours later, the family is still trying to recover from the news and go through the bureaucracy to repatriate André’s body. His family members claim that they do not have the financial means to pay for the transfer to Brazil and that the Brazilian government has said it will not do so.
“He went to war to save lives, fight for a country. But now, who is going to bring him back?”, asks Letícia, in an interview with BBC News Brasil.
André, 43, was part of a group of foreigners who voluntarily enlisted to fight alongside the Ukrainians in the conflict, which erupted in February when the Russian military invaded the country. According to Brazilians in Ukraine, he was killed by Russian forces. The Itamaraty officially confirmed his death, but did not provide further details.
According to a man who came forward, according to his family, as commander of André’s platoon, his body was said to be in a morgue in the Severodonetsk region of eastern Ukraine, where fighting has intensified.
Letícia says that, since the beginning of the week, she has been looking for Brazilian and Ukrainian authorities to try to repatriate the body and that the information is inaccurate. “We still don’t know how it will turn out. Apparently, the Itamaraty cannot pay for this. And the Ukrainian embassy says that the Itamaraty has this information. We are devastated”, she laments.
The Itamaraty says that it has been keeping in touch with the family, but that it will not have to pay for the transfer of the body. “The transfer of the mortal remains of Brazilians who died abroad is a decision of the family. There is no regulatory and budgetary forecast for the payment of the transfer with public resources”, he said in a note sent to BBC News Brasil.
The Embassy of Ukraine in Brasília was also contacted, but did not respond until the publication of this report.
Letícia says that the continuation of the conflict and the uncertainty about the exact place where her brother’s body is made it difficult to talk about repatriation. “We know that it is a difficult context, but even so, we cannot do without the information”, she says.
Last wish: cremation
Riana Moreira, 30, lives in Maranguape (CE), André’s partner and mother of one of his 3-year-old daughters. She met him during a survival course taught by him in the interior of Ceará.
The two lived together until February of this year, when he moved to Portugal in search of better living conditions. Until then, he worked as an app driver.
Riana stated that the negotiations about the transfer of André’s body have been made by the Brazilian’s sisters. According to her, they even considered the possibility that, instead of the body, only his ashes would be sent.
“It was his last wish. He said that if he died in combat, he wanted to be cremated and that his ashes be scattered a little at sea, here in Ceará, where he was very happy, and a little in the city where his parents live. , in Rio Grande do Sul”, said Riana.
She said, however, that if the body is cremated in Ukraine, she will not even be able to veil her daughter’s father. “When someone dies, the wake is part of the process for you to accept what happened. In his case, I run the risk of not having a wake for him. It hurts a lot”, laments Riana to BBC News Brasil.
Youngest and obsessed with war
André was born in Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul. He was the youngest and only male of four children. Letícia recalled, in an interview given to BBC News Brasil shortly after the first rumors of her brother’s death, that he showed since a small interest in the war theme.
“He was passionate about war subjects. When he was little, he loved little soldier dolls. That passion continued as he grew up.”
She said that André had served in the Army as a young man. After serving his period in the barracks, he graduated as a nurse, but soon found a way to stay in the military. André’s attachment to the theme was visible on his social media. On his Instagram profile, there are several photos of him wearing uniforms and wielding weapons.
According to Leticia, André enlisted in the Foreign Legion, a military group based in France that sends fighters to different parts of the world. Also according to his sister, he would have participated in fighting in Ivory Coast, where he was wounded, in 2017.
“We tried to convince him to give up this idea of war, but he was always passionate about it. It was what he wanted to do with his life,” said Letícia. The France-based Legion is not involved in the Ukraine conflict, but groups of foreign volunteer fighters have been moving into the country since the beginning of the war.
André’s sister said that the family followed his presence in the conflict with tension. According to her, the brother kept in touch via messaging apps and sent videos and photos of the atrocities he encountered in the combat area.
Riana regrets that André’s death has set off a wave of hurtful messages towards him. “It’s hard to deal with it because there are a lot of people saying that he was a Nazi, that his death was ‘well done’. These are people who don’t know him. I won’t let people talk about him like that and I won’t let my daughter forget about him. father. He asked me that if anything happened to him, I wouldn’t let her forget about him.”
