‘I couldn’t leave my mother to die’: GP tells of her mother’s escape from Ukraine
Dr Natalia Peker used a phone and family contacts to get her mother to safety
A few weeks ago, Dr Natalia Peker left her farm in Goulburn and drove to Sydney Airport, where she was reunited with her mother, Larissa.
It had been seven years since they last saw each other. But times had changed. Larissa arrived holding her suitcase, the only thing she had left because she had just escaped with her life from Ukraine.
Nearly blind, the 84-year-old had been living alone in an apartment in Kherson, one of the first cities to be occupied by the Russian military following the invasion.
“She had neighbours who would come in to check on her,” Dr Peker says.
