“Little Hassan is only 11 years old, but in his own way he has shown tremendous determination, courage and fearlessness that adults sometimes don’t have,” Slovak Interior Minister Roman Mikulec wrote on his official Facebook page on Monday after meeting with the boy who had traveled hundreds of miles by train alone.
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Once he crossed the border safely, customs officers and volunteers used the phone number written on his hand to contact his relatives in the Slovak capital Bratislava and they were reunited.
In a tearful video message released by the Slovak authorities, his mother, Yulia Pisetskaya, said she was a widow and could not leave Zaporozhye because she was caring for her mother, who was unable to walk on her own.
“I am very grateful that they saved my child’s life,” Pisecka said in a video message on Sunday, according to a translation posted on Facebook by the Slovak embassy in London. “There are people with big hearts in your small country.”
Inside Ukraine, the situation is becoming increasingly grim. Efforts to create evacuation corridors for civilians have failed in recent days, even as the Russians have left hundreds of thousands of residents without water, heat and natural gas due to the onslaught of the Russians.
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The number of civilian casualties, including children, is on the rise. According to UNICEF, at least 27 children were killed and 42 injured. Russia has repeatedly denied it has targeted civilians, but a growing number of Western officials are raising questions about possible war crimes.
UNICEF and the UN Refugee Agency are calling on neighboring countries to quickly identify and register unaccompanied and separated children fleeing Ukraine because children left without parental care are at “increased risk of violence, abuse and exploitation.”
In Hasan’s case, the Slovak authorities said they “warmed him up and provided him with food and drink, which they packed for his next trip”. The Slovak Ministry of Internal Affairs reported on Facebook that the boy “conquered all hearts with his smile, fearlessness and determination, worthy of a real hero.”