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After two days of journey by train and coach to flee Ukraine at war, with elderly people and children on board, around fifteen Brazilian footballers were finally able to return home, relieved, but very tested by ” the horror of the conflict. “ The hardest thing is all that we saw on the road, people who died and had nothing to do with this whole situation “, confided to journalists Pedrinho, striker of Shakhtar Donetsk, on his arrival Tuesday, March 2 at Guarulhos airport, near Sao Paulo. ” I had my four month old daughter in my arms and I just wanted her to be okay. It was horror, terrible images, destroyed cities. It stays etched in my mind “Added this 23-year-old player trained at Corinthians in Sao Paulo and passed through Benfica Lisbon. Shakhtar, which regularly competes in the Champions League, has for fifteen years a real Brazilian legion in its workforce: there are currently 13, if we count Junior Moraes, born in Santos, near Sao Paulo, but naturalized Ukrainian. Confined to the hotel for three days, the players and their families ended up making their way to Kiev central station in a hurry, thanks to an escort set up by UEFA and the Ukrainian Football Federation. Before the start of the conflict, there were regarding 500 Brazilians in Ukraine. There are now only around 100 left, according to the Brazilian embassy in Kiev.
