Cincinnati Bengals star Drew Sample and his Ukranian-born wife Angelina have expressed their concerns for family members who are stuck in Ukraine.
The Ukraine-born Ms Sample said her grandparents, aunt and cousins were all in Ukraine, which has been under fire since Russia invaded on 24 February.
“I call them up on the phone, and they answer it,” she told Fox News on Monday. “They’re sitting in the dark in the basement. I’m like, what’s going on?”
Ms Sample said both of her grandparents live in a small village and that the conditions were “pretty miserable for a 76-year-old woman to be hiding in”, with Ukrainian winters known for being long and harsh.
Her young cousins have also been sheltering with family when air raid sirens are triggered in the city of Chernivtsi, about 260 miles southwest of Kyiv.
One cousin aged 18 was being asked to serve in the Ukrainian military because the country is under martial law, Ms Sample said, with men aged 18 and older forbidden from leaving the territory.
Her husband and NFL star added in their interview that his wife’s family were stuck between leaving their homes in Ukraine or fleeing to neighbouring countries in eastern Europe.
Chernivtsi is not far rom Ukraine’s border with Romania, which has taken in a share of the 1.7 million refugees estimated to have fled Ukraine so far.
“They’re really not leaving into anything better, there’s a lot of refugees and it’s hard,” Mr Sample said. “At least being at home is, for them right now, better than the unknown”.
“We’ve just been trying to see if there’s anything we can do to kind of set up a plan where we can get them to us,” he added of the visa application process, which can take months.
That is despite the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine, which has caused many – including the Bengals tight end – to demand US President Joe Biden makes it easier for people fleeing Ukraine to come to the United States.
The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.
