Steelworks girl, 4, is saved as invaders seize medic mother
A LITTLE girl who captured hearts when she pleaded to be rescued from the Mariupol steel plant has made it out alive – but faces a future without her mother who was snatched by Russian forces.
Alisa Obidina, four, was among the last civilians to be evacuated from Ukraine’s final stand in the port.
But she arrived at a refugee camp in the city of Zaporizhzhia alone after her military medic mother Viktoria was
Thought to be in a PoW camp
detained at a checkpoint as the pair made their escape. Viktoria Obidina is thought to be in a prisoner-of-war camp in Russian-occupied territory.
Alisa is now being cared for by local officials, deputy governor Zlata Nekrasova said, while her family are on their way to collect her.
In a video posted yesterday, the child was seen happily walking outdoors, pointing to the Dnieper river and saying: ‘There’s the sea.’
The footage is a world away from the short clip that saw Alisa make headlines around the world last month as she and others cowered in the bunkers and tunnels under the Azovstal steelworks as it was relentlessly bombed by Vladimir Putin’s soldiers.
In the video, the little girl read a book and told her parents she wants to be ‘evacuated’, go ‘home’ and say hello to her grandmother.
The Azov regiment, which is still holding out underground against Russia’s attacks, said her mother had been denied passage through one of Moscow’s ‘filtration camps’ set up on the edge of Mariupol
Viktoria is thought to have been singled out because she tended to soldiers who were wounded in the battle for the steelworks.
As many as 100 civilians are believed to still be inside the plant, as well as 2,000 Ukrainian fighters.