COLUMBUS, Ohio — More than 8,000 miles from Columbus, two friends who work at Whole Foods are working to bring their friend home from Ukraine.
Alina Lyman is trapped in the war-torn country after leaving two years ago to return to her home country of Ukraine to care for her ill father.
She was supposed to be back in Ohio, but the war put an end to that.
“When she sent me the voice messages, I could hear the fear and you know her trying to not cry in her voice it kind of broke my heart honestly,” said Jamie Longo.
Longo, along with Eric Ponce, helped set up a GoFundMe account to raise money for Lyman if she can escape from Ukraine.
“She's very scared for the situation currently right now I know that she is ok right now I know that she is trying to escape when there is a chance,” Ponce said.
Lyman is a U.S. citizen and graduated from Columbus College of Art and Design. She lives in Dnipro, Ukraine, an industrial city of 1 million people located in the southeast part of the country.
A week ago, a Russian bomb landed there, killing one person.
Lyman described what life is like living in constant fear of bombing, saying the sirens would go off every night and day and citizens are going underground every time.
Longo and Ponce set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for Lyman so that when she can leave Ukraine, she will have enough money to buy food and a plane ticket home.
But Lyman has told her friends leaving now is not an option.
“I need some medicine for my pregnancy, and I need to go to the hospital and check my blood. I don't know what's happening inside so that's very scary,” she said.
Lyman is four and a half months pregnant, and she told her friends she has no access to prenatal care.
“She said a lot of the hospitals that are near her are only taking in elderly or injured people who have been hurt by the explosions or people who are about to give birth,” Longo said.
She told her friends leaving now would mean leaving her fiancé, mother, and father behind.
Lyman told her friends at the risk of losing her pregnancy, she may have to find a way out of Ukraine. She says attempts to get on the train leaving for Poland have been unsuccessful because it’s constantly full.
“It's packed and it's crowded so I'm really afraid to travel by myself,” she said.
For now, she told her friends, she's praying the war ends soon.
“I want to wait in case it's over and we can travel together but it continues into April I will not have a choice I'll have to leave Dima here because he cannot leave with me,” she said
As for Russian President Vladimir Putin, “I have no words to describe how much I hate him,” she said.
The U.N. migration agency estimates that nearly 6.5 million people have now been displaced inside Ukraine. That's on top of the 3.2 million refugees who have already fled the country.
The estimates from the International Organization for Migration suggest Ukraine is fast on a course in just three weeks toward the levels of displacement from Syria’s devastating war – which has driven about 13 million people from their homes both in the country and abroad.