A seven-year-old Ukrainian girl who was captured on viral video singing “Let It Go” from the Disney hit Frozen while stuck in a bomb shelter in Kyiv has now escaped her war-torn country for Poland.
Amelia Anisovych’s performance won praise from around the globe after the video was shared on Facebook by a woman who visited the bunker to help decorate it last week.
Marta Smekhova said Amelia told her she wanted to sing on “on a grand stage” in front of an audience of her family and others sheltering from Russian attacks on the Ukrainian capital.
“Everyone put their business aside and listen to a song by this girl who was just beaming light,” Ms Smekhova said. “Even men couldn’t hold back the tears”. She said the video was filmed and shared with the permission of the girl’s mother.
Amelia spent six days in the bunker before finally making her way to safety in Poland, The Sun reported.
More than 1.7 million Ukrainians have fled the country amid Russia’s ongoing assault while millions more remain there. Among them are Amelia’s parents, Lilia and Roman Anisovych, who sent her and her 15-year-old brother to Poland to stay with their grandmother but chose to remain in Ukraine themselves to cook for soldiers.
“I was so sad to wave goodbye to my children but it was the best thing to do to make sure they are safe,” Ms Anisovych said.
“I think Kyiv will stand and we will win. But at what price? How many children must die?”
She said the fact that the video of her daughter was shared so widely shoes “shows the world is united and stands with us and that gives us hope”.
“I always knew Amelia was very talented and a sweet angel and now the whole world knows the same,” the mother added.
“But it is a tragedy that she is only a star because of so much death and destruction. Amelia’s video showed the conditions that children had to suffer because of Putin.”
Actress Idina Menzel - who played Elsa, the character who performs “Let It Go” in Frozen - tweeted on Sunday night after seeing the emotional footage: “We see you. We really, really see you”. Amelia's rendition was in Ukrainian, rather than English.
The moment of peace for those inside the bomb shelter in Kyiv came despite the Russian bombardment of the capital and cities such as Odessa, Kharkiv and Mariupol at the weekend.
Kyiv’s subway alone was thought to be holding about 15,000 people last week.
The video of Amelia singing “Let It Go” has now been viewed more than five million times on Twitter, and over three million on Facebook.
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.
