Young Ukrainian family with baby gets shelter in Bruges after a long car ride

“My wife woke me up and said the war had started,” says Anton Skorobogatova. “Kiev was bombed. And then we started driving to the border with Poland.”

Long trip

Anton and his wife Tetiana saw an Instagram message in Poland from a Ukrainian couple who have been living in Bruges for years. The two offered them shelter, and then they came here. “We stopped at gas stations to change my baby’s diapers. It was terrible,” Tetiana testified. “But I’m glad I got the chance to be here with the baby. All my friends live in basements there, have no food or water for their kids. I’m lucky my baby doesn’t have to hear bombs or gunfire now.”

“Should be with wife and child”

Anton was born in Lugansk, where the war started eight years ago. Then he fled to Kiev, worked his way up as an international lawyer, but now has to leave everything behind again. Although he is lucky that he was able to flee in time. Other men have to stay to defend their homeland. “I felt ashamed. I called my friends and colleagues to ask what they thought of me. But they told me to be here for my wife and baby.”

The couple hopes that there will be a so-called green corridor, so that other women and children can also flee.