An Irish woman has had to make the heart wrenching decision to leave her husband and four children behind in Libya to seek a safe refuge for her two youngest daughters.
“It’s only once you get off the boat that you realise you’ve gone... that the connection is broken.
“God knows when we will see them again,” a tearful Patrizia Fitzpatrick said after disembarking from a Ukranian navy ship at Grand Harbour yesterday.
She was among another 192 evacuees – more victims of the cruel conflict who no doubt have their own harrowing stories to tell – brought over from Libya aboard the Konstantin Olshanskiy.
“We left family, children and husbands behind – unless you’re living it, you don’t know what it’s like,” Mrs Fitzpatrick, 47, told The Times.
“There was no food, a shortage of petrol and chaos – just fear. We were frightened.”
It had been extremely hard to leave a country she had called home for the past 25 years. She is married to a Libyan man and is the mother of five girls and one boy aged between nine and 22 years. Yesterday she was accompanied by her two youngest, nine and 14 years, heading back to the safety of her homeland.
“Sometimes you have to think of yourself and the children and give them a voice...at this moment in time I’m going home to my family while leaving my family behind.”
She had held back from taking a decision to leave – just like most of the evacuees who arrived yesterday. But she is determined to return.
Her Muslim faith has helped her remain strong. “God made it easy for me to leave and it was written for me to leave – I never thought I was going to leave as my children were there but inshallah (God willing) I’ll go back.”
Berthing at around 1.30 p.m., the Ukrainian crew members mounted two gangways and helped 80 evacuees down to solid ground while the others remained on board to journey onward.
The evacuees had boarded the boat in Tripoli at about 10 a.m. on Monday but it only sailed out of the harbour at 6 p.m.
The arrival was an emotional one for many other evacuees, among them women and young children. One man knelt on the cement, kissed the ground and said a few prayers as soon as he stepped off the ship. A little girl waved from the arms of a Ukrainian crew member as he carried her down the gangplank.
Armed with huge suitcases, pushchairs and soft blankets, the evacuees were welcomed by embassy and consul officials of various nationalities. They hailed from France, Slovakia, the US, Serbia, UK, Ireland, Bulgaria, Tajikistan, Italy, Libya and Ukraine. Yesterday’s arrivals added to the more than 16,000 evacuees who have made it to Malta since the start of the Libyan uprising.
British High Commissioner Louise Stanton was among those on the dock as she welcomed 22 Britons.
“They are British nationals who had the opportunity to leave but wanted to stay for very personal reasons. Now they decided the time is right to leave and we are very grateful to the Ukrainian navy for helping out,” she said.