The attentiveness of Beyhan Antepli, a Turkish bus driver, provided a new lifeline to four young sisters trapped amid the raging Ukraine-Russia war. Antepli, who was in Ukraine to evacuate Turkish citizens, transported the girls to safety, and the sisters now look forward to reuniting with their mother, who could not return to her home country from Turkey’s Antalya, where she stayed.
The sisters, all between the ages of 5 and 12, stayed in Ukraine's Kharkiv with their grandfather, who has Alzheimer's, while their mother had traveled to Turkey for a holiday before the war erupted. The children and grandparents took refuge in underground shelters and sought a way out of the city when their house was bombed. The family made it to a train station in Lviv, hoping to join others leaving the country.
This was when Antepli, who was sent to help evacuate Turkish nationals in Ukraine, noticed them, huddled and crying. The driver decided to help them reach safety and called the Turkish Foreign Ministry, which organized the evacuations. Their grandfather asked ministry officials to unite the children with their mother. They entrusted the girls to Antepli, and he took the children to Turkey via the Kapıkule border crossing. The girls will travel to Istanbul first with the help of Turkish officials and will then be flown to Antalya later to reunite with their mother.
Antepli told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Friday in the northwestern Turkish province of Edirne, where the Kapıkule border crossing is located, that he was emotional when he saw the children crying at the train station. “They had a grandfather and grandmother, both elderly, frail people, unsure what to do next. I wanted to help them. I called the Foreign Ministry, and the ministry was very helpful,” he said.
He said the family had been traveling for more than four days to reach Lviv and their trip to Edirne took another two days. “The children will have to travel more. They are exhausted, but it will be worth enduring it once they reunite their mother,” he said. The children had no food or water when they were stranded at a shelter and had no help before reaching the train station.
Turkey prioritizes the evacuation of its citizens from Ukraine and has brought thousands home in the past two weeks. It also provides a lifeline, through humanitarian aid to Ukrainians affected by the war. Turkish citizens with ties to the country occasionally step in to provide assistance.
For instance, Ilker Erdoğan, a fruit and vegetable trader, is among them. When the trucks he sent for exports to Ukraine were stranded, Erdoğan decided to deliver exports free of charge to Ukrainians who had limited access to food.
Erdoğan himself was in Kyiv when the war began on Feb. 24 and was evacuated to Turkey. However, his three trucks, loaded with cucumbers and tomatoes he exported to the country, were stuck there. When the trucks could not return nor unload the cargo, Erdoğan called the Governorate of Uman in central Ukraine and coordinated the goods delivery to people for free.
