While many Ukrainians are fleeing the country via Poland, an 11-year-old boy went a different route, which took him 700 miles by train to Slovakia with only a passport, a plastic bag, and a phone number scrawled on his hand. As the Washington Post reports, Slovakian authorities are calling "little Hassan" a hero. "In his way he has shown huge determination, courage, and fearlessness that sometimes adults don't have," Slovakian Interior Minister Roman Mikulec wrote on Facebook after meeting with the boy. Hassan had set out alone from the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia—home to Europe's largest nuclear plant, which the Russians seized on Friday—as his mother stayed behind to care for her own mother, who's unable to travel, according to the Slovakian Embassy in London. CNN couldn't independently verify the case.
"Thanks to the number on his hand and a piece of paper in his waist, he managed to contact his loved ones" in Slovakia's capital of Bratislava, officials said, per the Guardian. Relatives "came for him later, and the whole story ended well." Before the reunion, authorities said they "kept [Hassan] warm and provided him with food and drink, which they packed for his next trip." In a tearful Facebook video shared Sunday, Hassan's mother Yulia Pisetskaya, describing herself as a widow with other children, said she was "very grateful that they saved the life of my child," according to a translation shared by the embassy. "In your small country, there are people with big hearts." The Slovakian Interior Ministry said the boy "won everybody's hearts with his smile, fearlessness, and determination, worthy of a real hero." (More Ukraine stories.)
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