“Thousands have been waiting crowdedly and in wintry weather since the middle of the night, and we don’t know when we will be able to return to Israel,” said Danel Mimoni (26), who arrived early in the morning, after an arduous journey that lasted for many hours, from training in Ukraine to the small airport in Kau in Romania.
Mimoni went out a week ago with two friends to Uman, to be there for Rosh Hashanah, like tens of thousands more. “I left a week ago at 14:00 from my house in Netanya for Ben Gurion Airport and after a delay of about five hours on the flight from Israel, we arrived at the airport in Kao at night.
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“Because of the war between Russia and Ukraine, many planes landed in Bacau,” he said. “We took a taxi to the border with Ukraine and after a three-hour drive, we waited another two hours in rainy and cold weather at the border crossing. There was a long line and everything went slowly.”
After moving to Ukraine, he and his friends took another taxi and after about five hours of driving they reached their destination – Oman. “We arrived very tired in Uman after a journey of hardships that lasted about 20 hours,” he noted. Mimoni also says that there were no unusual events in Uman: “There was preparation and increased security there,” he explained. After Shabbat ended, he and his friends opened their cell phones and then it turned out that their flight back to Israel had been brought forward from Tuesday to Monday morning.
“We left for Bacau in Romania already at night and arrived on Sunday at noon, after about 12 hours of traveling and waiting at the border crossing.” He continued. “We rented a room in Bacau to rest after the difficult journey and early Sunday morning we took a taxi to the airport, but about 300 meters before the airport, the police set up roadblocks and we started walking.”
Mimoni tells about long hours of a nightmare near the airport. “We were told that the terminal was full and it was impossible to get any more passengers in. More and more coached shuttles began to arrive and long lines formed outside the terminal in rainy weather. The overcrowding was very difficult. We waited for about five hours and the rush was unbearable,” he describes the nightmare he experienced.
“After about five hours, we could no longer stand in such a crowded place and decided to return to the city, until we received notification of when our flight was supposed to leave. It turned out that our flight, which was supposed to leave in the morning, did not leave. We went back and we continue to wait outside the airport in uncertainty and do not know when we will be able to return home “.