By Mert Ozkan
ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish student Utku Ozdemiroglu and his father Cengiz were packing their bags for a flight home from Kyiv when the first bombs landed.
Cengiz was in the city to accompany his son, a third year medical student, through to the end of his academic term at Kyiv University. By the time they heard that war was imminent and bought their tickets for Turkey, it was too late.
“When the first explosion went off, the first bomb was fired, it shook the apartment like an earthquake… The windows were rattled. I thought they were shattering,” 24-year-old Ozdemiroglu told Reuters.
Fearing the worst, he texted his mother in Ankara.
“Am I going to die here? Is it over? Will my life end here? I had all these fears coming to my mind and I texted my mom and my younger brother” ‘I love you so much and I may not be able to see you again’,” he said.
He was among 5,000 Turks studying in Ukraine, according to figures released by the education consulting company ELT. They found themselves in danger when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Moscow calls the offensive a “special operation” to disarm and “denazify” Ukraine.
Soon, there were no flights out of Ukraine. After staying in a shelter for a couple of days, the father and son found a bus headed for Romania. By then, their nerves were frayed.
“When the bus started to run, I turned to Utku who was next to me and told him: ‘Son, where did the bomb go off? Let’s go to the shelter immediately.’ He said: ‘No, dad. It’s just the engine of the bus’,” Cengiz Ozdemir said.
Now back in Ankara, he tries to overcome the trauma by mingling in crowds. “I feel the need to speak and listen to people.”
Turkey’s foreign ministry says around three-quarters of an estimated 20,000 Turks have now been evacuated from Ukraine, but some remain in peril.
Ukraine’s embassy in Ankara said last week that 86 Turks, including 34 children, were sheltering in a mosque in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol. Turkey has not commented on the numbers but said evacuating citizens from Mariupol is a priority.
“War is an experience we don’t want anyone to live,” said the older Ozdemir. “God forbid anyone should see it.”
(Reporting by Yesim Dikmen; Editing by Dominic Evans and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
