When found in Warsawafter leaving her homeland, Ukraineto be saved from war, the Christina Tras she had no means to go to Spain, where her sister lives. Until he learned the existence of one Spanish taxi drivers in solidaritywhich he now characterizes “Heroes”.
Upset because of the war, somewhere Sixty Madrid taxi drivers covered almost 6,000 kilometers to deliver humanitarian aid, pick up Christina and more 134 Ukrainian refugees and transport them to Spain.
“They are our heroes,” the 22-year-old told AFP in Spanish, a language she began learning as a child when she traveled to Spain after the convoy arrived last Wednesday night through Thursday, to applause and applause. honking of other taxi drivers.
Now “I will look for a job to earn money and help my family and my country”, added the young woman, orphaned by her parents, whose grandparents stayed in Kyiv when she decided to go to the Polish capital, initially by car, after walking.
After getting out of the taxis, drivers and passengers hugged in a charged farewell after five-day cruise in Europe.
“I’m really exhausted but so relieved,” said Olga, who took a deep breath and arrived with her two children, refusing to give her last name because she feared for the safety of her relatives who had stayed in Ukraine.
Most of the refugees were women and children who have relatives or friends in Spain. With them, the trip was made by four dogs and a cat.
THE 46-year-old Olga Sokarievawho traveled with one of her two sons, 15 years old, left behind her husband and her other son, who “are fighting for our lives, for the independence of our country”.
“We do not know if we will still have a home and what our future will be,” she said anxiously during the trip.
The motorcade, which departed from Madrid on March 11th, consisted of a total of 29 taxis, with two drivers each, taking turns at the wheel.
The idea for the initiative was born during a discussion between drivers at Madrid airport about the bombing of the Russian army in Ukraine.
One suggested they go to Poland to take in refugees and others agreed, explained Jose Miguel Funeth, a spokesman for the Professional Taxi Association of Madrid, which coordinated the project.
“The response has been incredible. “We did not expect it,” he confessed.
THE Javier Hernandezwho was carrying a couple and their 12-year-old son, said he “could not sit like that” with his arms crossed when he saw pictures of children and women leaving to escape the war.
“Within a day their lives were turned upside down,” he continued, stressing that he only did “what I do every day in Madrid: I drove.”
Silent when they left Poland, the refugees refused to get off when the taxis made their first stops, he said, before “hugging them and starting to tell jokes”.
The business cost, about 50,000 euros, mainly for fuel and toll booth, was covered with amounts offered by solidarity taxi drivers. “It was unbelievable (…). “The children of some drivers even gave the money they had to their piggy banks,” he said Jesούςs Andrandesone of the coordinators.
Madrid taxi drivers have a tradition of such gestures of solidarity. Following the terrorist attack at the Atocha station in the Spanish capital in 2004 – when 191 people lost their lives – they took the initiative to transport the injured to hospitals. When the new coronavirus epidemic broke out in Spain in 2020, doctors went door-to-door for tests and transported patients to hospitals.
More than three million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, according to United Nations figures.
Like other drivers, the Nuria Martinez, 34 years old, who carried a mother and her two-month-old baby, says she is ready to leave again, to go and get other refugees. “We can do nothing, just sit on the couch. This is our small contribution “,
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