Hungarian hospitality: the story of two Nigerian refugees fleeing Ukraine
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Gbolahan Bada (Jibi) and Jesuniyi Omoiyin (Ni) met on the train from Ukraine to Budapest.
The story of Jibi and Ni
They both left Nigeria for a distant, Ukrainian university. Jibi had been studying in Kharkiv for five years and Ni for only five months when war broke out, and they suddenly had to flee. Valaszonline.hu made a heartfelt interview with the two young men, as well as László Szávay, the man who gave them shelter.
When they got off at Nyugati station, they had no idea where they were going to spend the night. Just then, they were approached by some Hungarian men.
One of them was László Szávay, who used to be a figure in Hungarian politics. He immediately offered accommodation to the two Nigerians who had fled from Ukraine.
Ni says that before he started studying at the Ukrainian university, he worked in customer service at a digital bank in Nigeria. After a while, he decided to study to earn more money. He says the cold weather in Ukraine surprised him the most.
Jibi agrees:
he has never experienced temperatures below 20 degrees Celsius before, but in Ukraine, it was 5 degrees when he arrived.
Before going to Ukraine to study medicine, he spent his civilian service on a chicken farm in Nigeria.
The war in Ukraine
When asked whether they felt the tension between Ukrainian and Russian residents in Kharkiv, Jibi said that they did and were worried about the escalation. The young man was only a few months away from his final exams when the war broke out.