Bristol baker helping Ukrainians find a new life in safety

A baker has helped more than 300 refugees flee Ukraine since the start of the war.

Marcus Wells, 60, initially began moving refugees to homes in the UK but now, after sponsors dried-up, he is helping them travel to Denmark.

He is using his contacts with charities who help fund the trips to Denmark and has undertaken multiple aid trips.

"I felt drawn to support them in whatever way possible," said Mr Wells, who lives in Bristol.

Mr Wells ran The Breadstore on Gloucester Road for 18 years before setting-up a catering company with his wife in 2015 to take bread and cakes to refugees in the camp known as The Jungle in Calais, France, and The Refugee Community Kitchen in Dunkirk, via the Aid Box convoy.

After they sold the business he began volunteering with Fare Share in Bristol, as well as continuing his work with refugees in France waiting to be granted asylum.

He said: "I think knowing that there were all these people on the doorstep of the UK wanting to get here touched me.

"That thing of people being displaced from their homeland for a variety of reasons has always affected me.

"It still does when transporting Ukrainians and seeing their life's possessions in a suitcase."

In total, almost 10 million refugees have moved from Ukraine to Poland since the start of the war in February 2022, with more than 100,000 Ukrainians having been welcomed into the UK as part of The Homes for Ukraine scheme.

In May, Mr Wells and a co-driver took his friend's minibus thousands of miles, moving more than a tonne of aid to Warsaw before picking up 12 refugees.

They helped the group travel to Sandholm, near Copenhagen, before returning to Warsaw via Copenhagen and Hamburg to pick up more aid and then doing the same journey three more times.

Mr Wells said the Ukraine conflict has only strengthened his desire to help.

"I still feel a strong pull to be doing this. That's possibly my character - if I know there's work to be done I don't feel like I can turn my back on it.

"I think my family think I might be slightly bonkers," he added.

One of the people that he helped move from Poland to Denmark is Roman Temchenko, a 36-year-old crane operator from Cherkasy in Central Ukraine.

He was part of the group that were on the bus, along with his wife Natalia and their three children, as well as two middle-aged women and four men aged 60 to 62.

Martial law is still in place in Ukraine, meaning men aged 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving so that they can fight.

Mr Temchenko was able to use an exemption from this rule whereby men who have three children under the age of 18 are able to leave.

He had already been fighting for more than a year in various places including Maryanka, Nevsky and Bakhmut.

Bakhmut has seen some of the most intense fighting of the war with thousands of lives from both sides reported to have been lost.

"I have never seen anything like it in my life. I saw a tank firing at me from 200m away," said Mr Temchenko.

"For weeks we passed corpses. There were rockets and direct firefights and mortars constantly being fired. I am very lucky to have survived.

"This is a chance for me to give a better life for my children. I hope we will have a happy life from now on," he added.

Mr Temchenko's daughter, Irina, turned four the day that they travelled to Denmark.

Mr Wells bought her a teddy bear on the ferry to Denmark and the convoy celebrated with sweets.

Oksana Lidovskaya is 45 and from Kramatorsk in Donetsk, in the east of Ukraine.

She was also part of the group on the bus.

She said: "It was scary in Kramatorsk in February 2022.

"When the shelling began I was in a supermarket when a bomb fell nearby. All the windows in the shop were broken and people fell to the floor.

"The last few months have been difficult. My father passed away. It was scary to try and visit him but I tried.

"Now in Denmark I'm trying to find a job and I want to enjoy life again but it's difficult to be away from my hometown."

After the trips in May, funds ran out so Mr Wells has been trying to find ways to keep the transportation going.

He has been making and selling Ukrainian black bread - a sourdough rye.

"We have asked the neighbourhood if if they would like a loaf to donate £2.50 to my Go Fund Me page and then we will drop them off a loaf.

"Funds raised go directly to transporting people from Ukraine to Copenhagen," he said.

Thanks to this and the donation from "a very generous individual" he has recently raised enough for another five trips.

For all the difference Mr Wells makes to people's lives, he plays down his role.

"The bus is the hero. I don't have feelings of pride. I'm just happy to be involved," said.

"I think there's that thing of helping people and not expecting something in return that goes really deep with people," added Mr Wells.

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