A Ukrainian family is braving a potentially deadly 2,000 mile trip to Scotland in a borrowed school bus.
Anna Puhach and sister Anastasiia were forced to endure months in an underground bunker, which were extended as the UK Home Office delayed authorisation for Anna’s travel visa.
After finally getting permission to fly, the sisters negotiated a place for them and their four teenage kids on a bus shuttling between the Ukraine and the UK.
The first leg of their trip was the most dangerous, emerging from their home in the missile ravaged border town of Sumy, initially to a meeting point south of Lviv.
The 600 mile journey from Sumy to Lviv came one day after shells rained down on villages on the outskirts of Sumy, which terrified the family.
The six travellers have used several trains and a bus as they head for their rendezvous point.
All going well they will arrive in Edinburgh in Sunday or Monday, after at least five traumatic days on the road.
Dollar campaigner David Louden helped arrange home for 38-year-old Anna - an accountant who was working as a geography teacher - and sons Ivan, 16, and Mykhailo, 14.
Her sister Anastasiia Movchan, her son Pavlo and daughter Iryna will stay with a different Scottish sponsor in Dollar.
David said: “They are shattered, traumatised and penniless and the sooner we see them in Dollar the better.
“They have been hoping and hoping they can get over to Scotland but they had a significant wobble today as the reality bites about saying goodbye to their husbands, not knowing when they might see them again. They are now halfway over and things have gone well so far."
David, who set up the Dollar Refugee Hosting Group, received a message from Anna that told of their trauma at leaving.
Anna wrote: “We are worried. Helen asked us to take fewer bags.
“We are going but we are all crying. The children are afraid to leave their father and grandparents.
“Today they are shelling the villages near the city.
“We hear them a lot. That’s why we think it’s the right decision to leave.”
David paid tribute to charity crusader Helen Bayly-Stark, of Lincolnshire, who has borrowed a school bus to make a mercy dash to Ukraine, collecting the Puhach family and six other Ukrainians.
He said: “Whilst I have done what I have from the safety of a desk and a mobile phone, He has acquired a van and driven to Ukraine to rescue family in need. What a true hero.”
The Home Office was first contacted by the two families on May 10 but the application dragged needlessly for two months.
The family stayed in the basement of their home for 38 consecutive days after bombing, during which time they spent all their money.
Helen Bayly-Stark said: “We have a trip of 1100 miles through England, France, Belgium and Poland.
“Their trip, however, will be far more hazardous, as Sumy has been heavily attacked and the roads leading out of there.
“We have picked up people before who have travelled at night time in trains with blacked out windows. It really is a war zone still and we should remember this.
“I do fear for their safety but all we can do is hope they make it to the rendezvous and we can head for home.”
The Puhach family hopes to get over the Channel Tunnel with Helen before boarding a train that will take them to Dollar, where two local families have prepared rooms in their homes.
