Fleeing Russian Invasion, Ukrainian Woman reaches Gaza

Bureij, Palestinian Territories – AFP

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Viktoria Saidam knew she needed to find a “safer place” than Kyiv and ultimately chose her husband’s homeland — a Palestinian territory not typically associated with security: Gaza.

Saidam, 21, was born Viktoria Breij in Vinnytsia, a town some 200 kilometers (125 miles) southwest of Ukraine’s capital.

While studying pharmacy in Kyiv, she met Ibrahim Saidam, a medical student from Bureij, a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli-blockaded Mediterranean enclave home to 2.3 million Palestinians.

Since they married two years ago, Viktoria Saidam had been keen to get to Gaza to meet her in-laws, but the Russian assault launched on February 24 accelerated that long-anticipated family gathering.

The couple fled Ukraine by minibus and then on foot, walking across the Romanian border. They then flew to Cairo and from there headed for the Rafah crossing with southern Gaza.

The young woman said she knows “the reality” of life in Gaza, a territory controlled by Hamas since 2007 and under strict Israeli blockade for 15 years now.

According to Ukraine’s diplomatic office in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, there are some 2,500 Ukrainians in Gaza, mostly women who have married Palestinians men who studied abroad, like Ibrahim.

Comfortably settled at the Saidam family home, Viktoria Saidam said she was doing well but also that “fear and panic” grip her when she speaks to her brother and sister who are still in Ukraine.

“I still cannot believe that what has happened isn’t a dream, it’s horrible,” she said. “I’m dreaming of the day my husband and I can go home.”