Medical student one day, refugee the next

Aspiring doctor Sofia Sorokina woke up early on February 24, 2022, to prepare for a gruelling day of university classes. Less than two weeks later she was standing with her grandmother at an Australian airport, carrying only a backpack.

The first blast was loud; Sofia assumed they were fireworks, not bombs. There had been rumours that Russia would invade Ukraine, but people shrugged it off as fake news. 

Then she felt the vibrations, and saw the bursts of flame jumping around her house.

Sofia was home alone when the first bombs fell on Kharkiv, her birth city. Her mother was in Australia visiting Sofia’s sister on the Gold Coast, and her father lived in a neighbouring district. 

Kharkiv is located 80km from the northeastern border of Ukraine and Russia, and the Russian influence runs deep, with Sofia’s entire family speaking Russian at home. 

It was an entirely surreal situation for a second-year medical student.

“It was so strange, this feeling of not really realising what is going on,” Sofia said.

“You see there are bombs, there are potentially troops outside, but I didn’t believe it was happening. I thought, should I go to the university? Should I go to my classes? I wasn’t even sure if the class was cancelled.”

When reality hit, she made a plan. Sofia’s dad would come to escort her from the house to the city centre, where some of their extended family would be waiting. Sofia grabbed a backpack and stuffed in her laptop, phone and travel documents.

She spent her first terrifying night of the war in a basement. 

The escape 

On the second day of the Russian invasion, the group moved to another relative’s house, located in a safer part of Kharkiv. Sofia spent the next eight days planning her escape out of Ukraine and into Poland – which was taking in Ukrainian refugees. But there were strong protests coming from Australia.

“My mother and sister said it was unsafe to leave, that they would feel guilty not knowing if I would be alive or not,” Sofia recalls. 

“I was crying. It was emotionally so hard because you’re so scared and you don’t know if you will be alive on the train, but you don’t know if you will be alive in this basement. 

“I thought on the seventh or eighth day, this is the time, we should try and get on a train, it’s now or never. I was really sure that if I would not get on this train, I would be stuck in my city and it would really be worse for all of us.”

Sofia, along with her cousin, her cousin’s daughter, and her grandmother, were driven to the closest train station en route to Kyiv. On the way they passed what was left of their beloved city.

Thousands of people crowded the train station, all desperate to flee to the east of Ukraine, while bombs and rockets were dropped on the city. Sofia, who comes from a Christian family, just prayed.

“I was praying to God, I was praying to my dead relatives, just save us, just let us get out of here,” she said. “I was so desperate that night, I couldn’t sleep.”

When the four women arrived in Kyiv, Sofia called her mother to say she had escaped Kharkiv, and they were making their way to Poland. They didn’t have tickets for the bus to Warsaw, and begged their way on, offering to sit on the floor.

Sofia Sorokina

“Maybe the ticket lady felt sorry for us, but she said, ‘Yeah ok, you can go on this bus.’ We were sitting on the floor, I was sitting on the stairs holding my niece (cousin’s daughter),” she said.

“It was an exhausting experience.”

When they arrived in Warsaw, Sofia said goodbye to her cousin, who went on to meet her husband in the Czech Republic. Six hours later, Sofia’s sister had secured two humanitarian visas and two airfares to enter Australia.

Sofia and her grandmother arrived in Brisbane on March 8, 2022.

“It was so emotional because my mum hadn’t seen me for three months, my sister hadn’t seen me for four years,” she said.

“I was so happy. I couldn’t believe I was in Australia, and out of the situation.”

A blessing in Australia

Hundreds of displaced Ukrainian university students like Sofia are estimated to be among those who fled to Australia since the start of the war. Many have sought scholarships to continue their studies in Australia.

Sofia was awarded one of ACU’s scholarship for students with a refugee background. Established in 2016, the ACU Refugee Scholarship supports students who are commencing undergraduate studies at ACU and have been granted a temporary protection visa. It covers the full tuition costs of their undergraduate degree at ACU.

“My sister has three kids, so it’s eight of us living in one house. Basically, she needs to take care of us, to buy food, clothes. I realised there is no way that we are going to pay for me to enrol in a medicine degree in Australia,” Sofia said.

“I was checking all the universities around Australia, and one day I came across ACU’s Refugee Scholarship. 

“I got used to seeing a Refugee scholarship that was only available to asylum seekers, or other refugees with different visa conditions to mine. But the day I came across the ACU Refugee scholarship, I saw my visa on the list, and that I could study biomedical science, which is a pathway to medicine.”

In receiving a second chance to become a doctor at ACU’s Brisbane Campus, the determined student isn’t taking anything for granted. She is already preparing for the GAMSAT, or the Graduate Medical School Admissions Test, which she will sit in 2024.

“I’m so grateful to ACU and all the staff that guided me through this journey,” Sofia said. 

While Sofia’s experience in Ukraine was terrifying, it also taught her a valuable lesson.

“I learned that tomorrow might not come,” she said. 

“I’m hoping to become a doctor in Australia, or if it will be safe, in my home city. But I don’t have a plan for the future because you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow.

“I’m just trying to live today.”

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