In 2020 I worked as a videographer for Sergei Tikhanovsky's team. Up to this point in time I have been able to successfully hide and solve all the difficulties of life on my own. But now I cannot cope by myself and my family (me, my wife, my 5 year old son and my newborn son) — I really need support.
I left Belarus in 2021. My child was found to have a cyst on his kidney, which they thought was cancer in Borovlyany. And without an accurate diagnosis, we were offered to give him chemotherapy. My wife and I made the hardest decision of our lives at that time and refused the proposed treatment. After that they threatened to deprive us of our parental rights. Life in Belarus was already too difficult, we were constantly changing our place of residence, because we were afraid that I could be found in the Tikhanovski case. But after the news about my son, life in Belarus became impossible. So we left in search of a new home and doctors who could provide a diagnosis.
First we were in Ukraine, where we started the medical examinations, which confirmed that it wasn't cancer. There was already talk of war in Ukraine. All of our friends were in Georgia, we decided to take a break. God told us to go to Georgia, so we did. As it turned out, we were very lucky. And we managed to avoid the war.
We had to leave Georgia because our son's diagnosis was still underdiagnosed. We spent our last savings to leave Georgia for Spain to pay for our son's examination. A distant relative living in Spain promised to help with legalization and work. Back in Georgia, my wife became pregnant. Less than a month ago I had my second child on the territory of Spain, because of stress the baby was born prematurely and with low birth weight. My wife is recovering from a C-section.
At the moment, together with my family, we are in a town near Alicante.
We were going to stay here to live, but the job I was promised here turned out to be only for three summer months. Now I am forced to be unemployed. Here in Spain my family and I wanted to apply for international protection. But because of the war and the influx of refugees from Ukraine it is impossible to do so. It's impossible to make an appointment to submit documents, there are simply no available dates. We waited more than 4 months. We took a consultation with a lawyer. All the lawyer offered us was to stay illegals for three years. Illegal immigrants cannot live here because of the lack of a work permit (you can't get a job anywhere without one).
The newborn has no documents, except a Spanish birth certificate. As it turned out, a passport can only be made for him in Belarus, and his return to Belarus threatens me with a very long imprisonment term of 15 years. I applied to many organizations, which help Belarusians: in our situation it is impossible to get a work permit or a visa, but only if we return to Belarus. And the only option for my family is to apply for international protection. But to do this we have to go to another country in the EU, as it's almost unrealistic to do it in Spain now. All means of subsistence are over. The only option is to apply for international protection, as the newborn has no documents.
Before our visas run out, we need to have time to apply. We started looking for some acquaintances in the EU who could help at least with housing for the first time. In Poland and Lithuania, there were no people who would be willing to shelter us. We had to live with our baby in a refugee camp or in a shelter, as you can imagine, in an extreme case. Especially since the baby was born prematurely and underweight, and now he needs increased care and attention.
An acquaintance of mine from Stockholm has responded, and he is willing to take us in while the police review our case. But we have no money to fly to Stockholm, the tickets for my whole family will cost about 600 euros. Also, we don't even have money for food at the moment, the last money we spent on our return certificate to get out of Spain. We need at least some funds for food, food for the newborn, warm clothes for the newborn and diapers. We calculate that we need 500 euros to survive the first two months. We will be very grateful to everyone, who is supporting us.
How much is needed?
1150€ — plane tickets with luggage; food; purchase of basic necessities for a newborn; food for a newborn for the first two months.