A woman has adopted a dog that ‘saved her life’ as she hid in a basement for a week as bombs shelled her home in Ukraine.
Refugee Daryna Sarig told how the Spitz, named Marcel, cuddled up to her when she was curled on the floor in “terror” as explosions hit her building in Kharkiv last week.
The pet’s owners had fled the country and abandoned him, but Daryna could not bear to leave Marcel, and brought him as she boarded a train alone to cross into Poland on Wednesday morning.
Her loyal companion has been “protecting” Daryna after she was forced to leave her parents and grandparents in the city, where Russian invaders have launched more than 50 attacks in the past 24 hours.
Speaking to the Mirror as snow fell in Przemyśl, the 23-year-old said: “Marcel saved me so now I must save him. I was really scared hiding in the basement of my building, it was cold and completely dark for two of the days with not much food. We spent seven days there in total.
“We could hear rockets outside, and I was down on the ground when Marcel came to me. I was shaking, stressed and so scared. I thought we would die and our building would come crashing down. He came to me, he made me calm. If it wasn’t for him I do not know how I would have made it through.”
The IT worker was forced to leave loved ones including her grandparents, who are too frail to travel, and her father who at 53 is within the age range for military conscription.
Weeping, she said: “They wanted me to go, but I cannot describe how it feels to leave them. I am so scared for them.”
Daryna is now travelling to Warsaw to meet her sister Maria, 17, who is studying in Poland.
“She has always wanted a Spitz and she doesn’t know yet that I have brought Marcel. She has been so worried about our family so this is going to be a special surprise for her.”
Her story is one of the scores of heartbreaking tales as it emerged that some 2million people have now fled Ukraine, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
In a country of approximately 44 million people, that’s about 4.5 percent of the Ukrainian population.
Among those to flee is little Stas Kozak, who marked his second birthday by crossing into Poland with his mum and grandmother at 5am on Wednesday morning.
Last year, the lad turned one with his family around him at their home in Uman, central Ukraine, with “music, cake, flowers and dancing” to celebrate, his mother recalled.
Today, mum Lena, 22, held back tears as she told how Stas will not be able to see his dad, Sascha, a firefighter who has had to stay in their home country to help citizens there.
His grandmother Luda Panchenko, 55, clung to the boy in zero-degree temperatures at Przemysl rail station, as Lena explained: “Stas is very tired, very cold and very upset. He misses his dad.”
A video they had taken of a bomb-hit street near their home in central Ukraine taken on the first day of the Russian invasion shows an abandoned bike with what appears to be blood stains nearby.
“There is shelling and gunfire but for now, thank God, our homes are okay,” family friend Anastacia, who is travelling with them, said.
Student Martin Ma was not so lucky, after he fled his home in Kharkiv - hours before it was hit by an explosion.
Dramatic footage shows his apartment block engulfed in smoke, and the 25-year-old told how he feels “terrified” to think of what would have happened had he not escaped.
Martin, a Chinese national who has studied in the country for two years, had boarded a train out of the city with two friends just three hours before.
The student, who completed his Masters degree two days before Russia invaded on February 24, added: “We had to run because every day I was waking up to the sound of a bomb, there was gunfire everywhere - I even picked up a bullet, though I threw it away before crossing here.
“It took a day to get on a train because so many people were trying to escape, it was horrible.
“My family in China are so scared for me, they have been telling me to get out.”
Yesterday, the World Health Organisation warned that Ukraine was running out of vital medical supplies.
The government in Kyiv said Russia had broken an agreed ceasefire, prompting further fears for those hoping to flee.
“The enemy has launched an attack heading exactly at the humanitarian corridor,” the Ukrainian defence ministry said on Facebook, adding that the Russian army “did not let children, women and elderly people leave the city”.
