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Solothurn Guido Fluri chartered a plane himself for the second time from Krakow. On board, dozens of Ukrainian families relieved to be able to flee their country at war.
Swiss millionaire Guido Fluri distributes chocolates on the plane he himself chartered to fly around 90 Ukrainians to Switzerland on March 22, 2022.
AFP
Swiss millionaire Guido Fluri on the right plays with a little Ukrainian girl at Krakow airport, while waiting to board the plane he chartered himself.
AFP
Alona Chevchenko hugs her baby tighter to her bosom, her eyes watering with tears as the plane takes off from Krakow. Direction Switzerland, security and uncertainty. “I’m all alone,” says the 29-year-old woman. “I finally have the feeling that we are safe but I don’t know what awaits us”.
She is one of a group of 90 refugees from Ukraine – mostly women and children – who were able to board a plane chartered by Guido Fluri, a Swiss millionaire. “If I can help, I help,” he told AFP on board the A320 en route to Krakow to pick up his somewhat unusual passengers.
Responsible for people who suffer
Guido Fluri is inspired by his own difficult childhood. “When you have the luck and the means later in life, you have to learn to be responsible for people who are suffering. For me it is an obligation,” he said.
It is the second flight he has organized since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and forced more than 3.6 million Ukrainians to flee their country. Since March 8, he has brought some 320 people to the wealthy Alpine country. He expects to reach at least 400 thanks to the help of Catholic associations and in close cooperation with the Swiss, Polish and Ukrainian authorities. “We will help as long as possible. Money is not the main concern, ”explained the 55-year-old man, looking relaxed.
In Krakow, accompanied by his wife Tania, his 20-year-old son Samuel and his 14-year-old daughter Luisa, he mingles with the crowd of future passengers, all of whom have their faces marked by fatigue. The Fluri family greets everyone, distributes stuffed birds in the color of Ukraine to the children and inquires regarding the names of the many dogs and cats that are on the trip.
“I have three children”
“I’m impatient and a little scared,” Olga Titkova told AFP. At 35, she was teaching English, and leaving the country was not an easy decision. His mother and grandmother remained in Prylouky, a town east of kyiv spared until now but only a few kilometers from the bombardments. “It’s dangerous to stay…I have three children and I have to save their lives,” she says, glancing at them, who are clinging to their dad, one of the three men on the trip. . Olga Titkova’s dark circles of fatigue are even more marked by the blondness of the hair and a flesh-colored mask.
The return? If the Russians leave. “I don’t want to live under the shadow of the Russian flag. I want to live in a free country. I want my children to be free,” she says. On board, an interpreter describes the stages of the journey to them and the “Slava Ukraini”, “Glory to Ukraine” burst out, followed by loud applause when the plane takes off.
Placed children
Olena, 45, who prefers not to give her last name, hopes “that Switzerland can provide a comfortable life” like the one she left behind in Chernihiv, near the border with Belarus. She shows photos on her phone of a bomb planted in a playground near her 15-year-old son’s school, which did not explode. The school was destroyed. The teenager confides that he wanted to study computer science but now he has “no more plans”.
On arrival in Zurich, the journey is not quite over. You still have to go to different reception points. Two dozen refugees go to a former children’s home in Mumliswil-Ramiswil in the canton of Solothurn, where Guido Fluri spent part of his childhood.
Since then, the philanthropist has bought the home and transformed it into a memorial in honor of the foster children. As he served soup and bread himself, he was hit with “relief” on people’s faces. It’s a very strong experience to be able to “help bring people to safety who had to flee, who feared death and who were shot at,” he says.
But fear was also part of the journey. Alona Chevchenko was a police officer in kyiv. “Today I’m scared. I cry a lot,” she admits. Her husband remained to defend the capital. His parents, his brother and the dog also stayed.
These refugees join the 13,000 Ukrainians listed in Switzerland on Wednesday.
(AFP)