ATLANTA — Thousands of people are trying to flee from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and 15 of them are being guided by a woman right here in Atlanta.
We told you last week about a registered 501(c)3 organization working with an orphanage in Ukraine, Hope Now Ministries, trying to help get young people out of the country.
On Feb. 28 she told us about the 15 young women and children who were able to make their way to Romania thanks to the ministry.
We caught up with the president of the ministry, Cyndee Knight to get an update on how their work continues to get people to safety.
“Seven of [those] girls moved from Romania on to their final destination, three of the girls have been flown to Italy, then we have four girls in Sweden," she said.
She's working to get more than 175 children from the orphanage out of Ukraine, and other people are also stepping up to help.
Knight started traveling to Ukraine 16 years ago on mission trips to support the orphanages there. Knight founded programs for kids who age out of the orphanages at 14 in that country.
On Tuesday afternoon, a mayor from a Ukrainian village called Knight to offer her ministry a bus for them to use.
“On the one hand, you want to say yes, I hope we're going to be doing this in the next six months, too. But time is of the essence. We need to have as many vans as possible to be able to go get these people and get them to the border," she added.
Finding transportation is just one of many hurdles. Gas prices have skyrocketed, too.
"It's with nine people in a van and diesel is very, very expensive now... it's more than quadrupled in price," Knight added.
She says a drive from the center of Ukraine to the Romanian border takes two days. Add another two days for the return trip, and the cost of the drive, round-trip adds up to $1,000.
Each bus takes up to seven passenger, plus two drivers.
Her ministry could only evacuate girls because boys 18 or older may be conscripted into the army.
"Quite frankly, they are terrified and they just want to go come home," she said. "You can imagine if you have your own son who is just 18 years old and one day he was playing video games and the next day, he's holding a Kalashnikov rifle facing facing Russian aggression. So it's a very sad and difficult situation for many people in Ukraine for sure. I'm very sad to say that unfortunately, we really can't do very much for them.”
For some, one of the biggest obstacles that no money can fix, is getting the required documentation to be able to leave.
"They really need to lift those rules and regulations for all of these extra documents. These children, most of them have a birth certificate. That should be their airplane ticket," she added.
Knight says they’ve been able to raise more than $25,000, which has helped them tremendously with gas and vans.