Sitting on a sofa, his eyes tired, but his voice calm and composed, Elhadji Pape Diaw agreed to tell RMC Sport about his last 24 hours.
To flee the war in Ukraine, the Senegalese defender of Rukh Lviv took his car and crossed the Polish border. After hours of doubts and after driving all night, he finally arrived “safe and sound” at a hotel in Krakow around 3am.
A few weeks ago, Elhadji Pape Diaw, Senegalese central defender (27), signed with the Ukrainian club Rukh Lviv.
In January, the former Caen and Angers player joined Lviv, a city located 500 kilometers west of Kiev and 70 kilometers from the Polish border.
“When I arrived, I already felt some concern and everyone had it in their heads that the situation could degenerate at any time,” he told RMC Sport.
This is what happened on the night of Wednesday to Thursday. The Ukrainian capital woke up with the announcement of Russian military intervention and bombardments. In the early morning, Vladimir Putin had announced that he was carrying out his threat of invasion, by launching a major operation on Ukrainian territory.
“I was woken up by a siren”, confides Elhadji Pape Diaw, who knew Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 between 2019 and 2021.
“So we went to inquire at the club and we were told that the Russians were attacking. There was panic in the team and we learned that the championship was suspended. Even if we were not on the side of the bombings, we should not linger too long there”, he continues.
In the aftermath, Elhadji Pape Diaw, accompanied by two of his teammates, decided to leave Lviv at the wheel of his car.
“The main thing was to leave the country”
“The difficulty was to fill up with gas. There was a long queue and rations for everyone to stock up. But fortunately, I still had a little gas and that did it…”, he explains, relieved.
“Around 2 p.m., we went to collect our passports at the club and then we left. We arrived at the border around 4:45 p.m. But there were a lot of people, everyone wanted to save their skin, it was not easy”.
After hours of waiting and worrying, the three men managed to cross the border.
“We crossed the border around midnight. We had to take our troubles patiently, but the main thing was to leave the country. There were a lot of controls, I was very afraid that we could not pass. There were far too many cars, Ukrainians, foreigners, it was a general scramble, everyone wanted to cross the border, get around the queue… We had to get away as quickly as possible.
It was finally around 3 a.m. that he arrived at a hotel in Krakow.
Without having slept much, Elhadji Pape Diaw now feels safe.
“I blame it a bit, there are a lot of mixed feelings, he told RMC Sport.
In this kind of moment, the most important thing is health, to be safe and sound, to be safe. I tried to manage, but it’s hard to put into words. I will be back on the road to France tomorrow to find my family.”
