A Zimbabwean-born medical student from Leicester, United Kingdom, has had to postpone her wedding as she prepares to escape Ukraine following a Russian invasion by land, sea and air which commenced on Thursday.
Stella Musiyiwa was due to wed her partner Kudzai in the eastern city of Dnipro this Saturday but was forced to join a group of foreign students fleeing to the Polish border in two cars ahead of a possible Russian onslaught.
Musiyiwa told BBC News that if they can reach Poland they should be able to get a flight back to the UK. She said:
There are no instructions from anybody. No one is giving any guidance on what we should do.
We don’t have any communication from the British Embassy on what we should do, they’ve just stopped communicating.
The Polish government have said that no matter where you’re from [their] borders are open to all refugees, so that’s what everybody is trying to do.
We just need to get out of the imminent danger that we’re in.
Stella’s mother Memory Musiyiwa, who lives in Leicester, said she hopes her daughter will be able to reach Poland.
She said her daughter’s escape from Ukraine invokes memories of her escape from Zimbabwe from the ZANU PF regime.