Editor's note: The family has requested their last name not be used, due to safety concerns.
LAKELAND – She once believed her family would return home. But 11 years later, the doors they once thought they could re-open still remain closed.
Maryna and her husband lived a simple life in Horlivka in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, working at a railway station, while raising their young child.
But then war came. During the Battle of Horlivka, the city fell to chaos. Roads were closed. Shells carved craters into the streets Maryna once walked.
The couple carried what they could, just barely the essentials. And they packed in a hurry.
“We didn't have time to think . . . we saw what happened in Sloviansk,” she said, referring to the Siege of Slovyansk, which occurred from April 12 to July 5, before the Battle of Horlivka that occurred shortly after.
“As soon as Russia came. We moved.”
After packing up, they drove away from the city, which is located near the Russian border, toward the more inner region of Ukraine. But there was no way in, and the roads were too dangerous to cross.
The Russians were shooting at vehicles - it didn’t matter who they were.
The only way out of the Donetsk region was through Russian territory, toward Belarus, where a friend of the family waited to help them.
A military checkpoint loomed ahead. Some cars made it through. Others did not.
Maryna sat in the passenger seat, holding her son close, whispering reassurances she barely believed. When soldiers approached, she covered his eyes. He would not see the guns. He would not see the soldiers.
“I didn't want him to see anything. I didn't want him to remember . . . so I just closed his eyes.”
They got in.
They drove for days, following nothing but a map they could barely follow. They had no cellphone service, no certainty of where the next road would lead. They only knew that they had to find the road to Belarus.
At night, they slept in the car, wrapped in exhaustion rather than soft blankets. Food was whatever they could find. Dry raisins or gas station snacks.
Her son, normally full of questions, remained silent. But they made it to Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
Scared and hopeless, they found support from their friend, who helped them find jobs and an apartment. He paid for the first month's rent.
The couple thought Belarus to be a brief refuge. They hoped the war would end, and that Horlivka would be theirs again.
Yet years passed and that hope never came to fruition. For 10 years, they remained in Belarus, and within those years welcomed two more children to their family.
But they never found a way home. Since 2014, Horlivka remains under Russian occupation.
Full invasion
In February 2022, Russia launched its full invasion of Ukraine. Belarus, a close ally to Russia, gave Maryna’s family an ultimatum. If they wanted to stay in Belarus, they had to acquire Belarusian citizenship.
The couple refused, but not outright, not wanting to earn the authority’s ire.
They understood that Belarus’ ultimatum meant they could no longer stay. They had to find a way to leave. The Donetsk region, where Horlivka is located, was obviously not an option. It was at war, and the city remains heavily damaged today.
Russia announced Donetsk as a new Russian republic, along with Luhansk Oblast (province). Ukrainians who remained were forced to become Russian citizens, or they wouldn’t be able to get a job or have a home to live in. Worse yet, they could be shot.
So, her husband searched for a way out by going to the Internet. They had to do something for their children, says Maryna.
Finally, her husband found a host family in a distant country – Canada. The Woodhouse family from Bonnyville was willing to offer support.
Escape from Belarus to Poland
“They offered us support and help if we came to Bonnyville,” Maryna recalled.
Oksana Vallee, a settlement worker in Bonnyville with the Action for Healthy Communities, and the Ukrainian church in Bonnyville, was also contacted by Maryna for help, after learning about the strong Ukrainian community in the area.
“We, together with the Bonnyville community, helped the Woodhouses to host Marina and her family, and to get the furniture, household items, clothes,” and other essentials, said Vallee. They knew Maryna’s family was coming “with literally nothing.”
But Vallee said Maryna’s family still had to escape Belarus and get to Poland, where the Canadian embassy is located. There, they could acquire Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) visas.
Canada, alongside other countries in the world, offered programs to help Ukrainians escape the war until March of 2023.
“[CUAET] offers Ukrainians and their family members free, extended temporary status and allows them to work, study and stay in Canada until it is safe for them to return home,” reads the Government of Canada website.
They packed in silence. Their children were told to take only the toys that would fit. Discretion was of the utmost importance to evade the Belarusian and Russian authorities.
Whatever friends they had made, they had to leave behind for the second time.
Thanks to their discretion, they escaped Belarus unharmed.
They took care of their papers in Poland, where they stayed for a month.
A friend of Maryna’s in the United States helped the family purchase plane tickets to Canada.
“We just had to wait, but we couldn’t relax until we landed in Canada,” says Maryna.
Getting to Canada
But it was smooth sailing from Poland.
In January 2023, the family arrived in Edmonton, where the Woodhouses waited for them at the airport, much to their relief.
They brought pillows and Maryna’s children took them, curled up, and fell asleep in the car.
She thought, “Finally, we are here, we are safe. Everything should be alright now.”
After staying with the Woodhouse family for two nights, they moved into a rental house.
“They found a house for us already,” she recalls. “We didn't buy anything, because everything was already set up for us,” she adds, with a crack in her voice.
“That was amazing. I'm so grateful,” she says, thanking everyone who helped her family along the way.
There are still challenges ahead. CUAET is not permanent. Ukrainians must go back someday, if the war ever stops. But Maryna wonders if it ever will, and if there even will be a home to go back to.
For now, there is peace for her family. And she hopes, for her children’s sake, that this peace will last, that they can remain in Canada and build a new life.
She says her children never had that “feeling of home.”
“All what we wish for all now for our kids, is to have a peaceful, blue sky,” says Maryna.
