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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
James McNeill

Heroic dad breaks down in tears on 'harrowing' trip to save refugees

A Merseyside dad made the unbelievable journey to Ukraine taking supplies to those in need.

Simon Davies arrived at a refugee centre on March 22 in the southeastern city of Przemysl, Poland, on the site of a former Tesco. He returned last Saturday following a four-day trip that took him from Krakow to Amsterdam.

Simon from Formby said: "When we arrived there were waves of refugees who had fled across the border and what I saw was just harrowing.

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"People were making shelters out of what was available while mothers just sat there with children crying.

"Our plan was to drop off our supplies and take refugees with a British visa back with us but there were none, so the authorities put us in contact with some vulnerable people and we helped them instead."

Simon, 51, along with drivers, Peter, David, Gareth mapped out a route and paid for all the hotels, food, and accommodation along the way as they dropped refugees off in cities across central Europe.

One refugee was Oleksander a 20-year-old whose family had been killed during Russia's attack on Kyiv. Simon said: "He was such a big guy he looked so strong but when we first met him he was having panic attacks and kept crying.

"When I dropped him off in Amsterdam I was the one crying and he was looking after me."

Simon a dad of three, also had a 71-year-old man in his convoy with early-onset dementia. He said: "Sergiy couldn't speak a lot of English but he tried and because of his memory he couldn't remember if he had any family.

Simon with, Dave, Peter and Gareth (Simon Davies)

"We had to drop him off at a refugee centre in Germany and gave him some money but he was on his own, that was one of the hardest moments for me."

Speaking to the ECHO he said: "I'm so glad we did it. When we got on the ferry to England we all looked at each other and felt this great sense of relief, we knew that we had helped those people and achieved something.

"Even though we were able to help it's the ones you leave behind that stay with you."

Simon estimated that the trip cost around £10,000. He is now planning to head back to Poland on April the 27th to bring refugees back to England.

To fund the trip Simon started a GoFundMe page which has now amassed over £29,000. You can support Simon's GoFundMe page here.

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