There was a familiar scene of arrivals at Birmingham Airport on Friday night.
Emotional welcome from hugs and tears.
But for Ukrainian refugee Yulia Korzun and her British sponsor, Emma Nishigaki, it meant much more.
Ms. Korzun has just arrived from the Romanian capital, Bucharest. The last stage of the trip, which began weeks earlier in the Ukrainian city of Nikolaev.
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So on Saturday morning, Ms. Korzun woke up to a new day, to a new country and at least for now a new life.
She is 2,000 miles from her home in southern Ukraine. As she sits in Evesham and eats full English, she must feel like a million.
“On March 14 or 15, I realized that if someone could come to your door to kill you, that’s not right,” she said in her excellent English.
“I decided I needed to go somewhere else. I wanted to be useful, so I wanted to find a place where I could be useful.”
Image: Ms. Korzun has traveled more than 2,000 miles to Birmingham
Ms. Korzun fled first to Bulgaria, then to Romania, before finally flying from Bucharest to Birmingham.
Ms. Nishigaki and her husband Kee were compared to Ms. Korzun in late March.
Three days later, they applied for her visa. After pursuing the application with the help of Evesham MP Nigel Huddleston, it was approved earlier this week.
On the day Ms. Korzun received her visa, initially for a six-month stay, hundreds of others in her hometown lined up for buses to take them to safety in Romania.
Image: Ms. Nishigaki welcomed Ms. Korzun at her home
Ms. Nishigaki said there was no real discussion between her and her husband about sponsoring refugees. It was something they both immediately decided was the right thing to do.
“There’s a strange feeling of almost guilt that you’re not going through what these people are going through,” she said.
“A situation that they did not want, did not want and have no control over.
“And if you can go to bed every night, knowing that you did at least one good thing or that you made a person happy or that you made a person smile, then your life was worth living that day.”
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Two more Ukrainians will arrive at Ms. Nishigaki’s home in Ivsham on Saturday night.
Their progress was not as smooth as that of Mrs Korzun due to problems traveling through France.
The sponsorship process is something Ms. Nishigaki would like to see simplified and accelerated.
But for Ms. Korzun and her fellow refugees who have applied successfully, he has provided a path to safety.
Their main concerns now are the well-being of their loved ones who have been abandoned and the fear of what they may return to after the battle ends.
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