UK-based aid worker describes escape from Russian missile attack in Ukraine
Karol SwiackiA UK-based aid worker said he and his friends and colleagues were “lucky to be alive” after nearly escaping a Russian missile attack on a Ukrainian hotel on Wednesday night, with at least four people dead.
Karol Swiacki, a Polish national and founder of Ukrainian Relief, a Bournemouth-based charity, had dinner with friends at the Central Hotel in Kryvyi Rih during a missile strike.
Mr Swiacki told BBC News: “It’s incredible that we are not safe, it’s incredible.
Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky said in a telegram that more than 30 people were injured in the attack and rescue workers were still on the scene.
Charity workers – Who has won the BBC Award before – Aid relief work in Ukraine, including the delivery of sports equipment to schools and the provision of schools for 550 children.
He also visited schools, shelters and orphanages with Marc Edwards, a trustee of Ukrainian relief, a British national who now lives in the United States.
During the strike, the two had dinner with friends in the hotel restaurant. The dining party included two American volunteers, two workers from the Ukrainian charity foundation, and a little boy and his pregnant mother.
“We just put things in the room and then had a meal with the local Ukrainian contacts and the cell phone alarm rang, so we ran to the shelter,” Mr Edwards said.
“We took two steps and had a huge prosperity, an absolute nightmare, and everything turned into a very apocalyptic news in a few seconds, screaming, alarms.”
Video sent by Mr Swiacki to the BBC showed that the tables in the smoked restaurant were filled with smoke and had a takeaway box on the table.
“There are a lot of things and we can’t see where we are going,” Mr Swiacki said.
Mr. Edwards confirmed that the explosion “takes all the windows” and they have to crawl out of the dining room through the broken windows.
The two returned to the hotel to retrieve some of their belongings to see if others were injured.
They also go out outside the hotel to look for vehicles they are traveling around the country.
“The three cars we encountered with us were destroyed – they were full of aid,” Mr. Edwards said.
He parked it outside the hotel Mr. Swiacki’s van was “completely crushed to pieces”.
He said: “We heard some sounds that we didn’t want to hear anymore. Someone was trapped under the ruins next to our van and didn’t do it.
Mr. Swiacki describes the scene as a “crazy, absolute nightmare” and he and the group he survived with.
He said the restaurant is located on the ground floor and he believes it is the only room or at least one of the few that has not collapsed.
The duo is still in Kryvyi Rih, and despite the shock of the explosion, Swiacki said he has not stopped him from continuing his aid work with Ukraine.
“I will never stop helping people after that,” he said.
The attack happened ahead of the European Security Summit that Zelensky attended on Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha responded to this, showing “Why Ukraine needs national defense capabilities: protecting human life from Russian terror”.
Karol Swiacki
