A Syrian refugee who built a new life and started a company in Austria has put everything on hold to travel to the Ukrainian border to bring supplies to people fleeing the war.
Delshad Bazari was a refugee himself who eventually ended up at the Traiskirchen refugee camp on the outskirts of the Austrian capital Vienna after fleeing the Civil War in Syria in 2014.
He was forced to leave everything including his family behind in his homeland of Syria and the brutal Civil War there in 2014, in the hope of making a new life far away from the horrors of war.
He has not forgotten the terror he and his family endured and has now pledged to help other refugees facing a similar crisis.
Delshad has been praised by Andreas Babler, the Mayor of Traiskirchen, on social media, with the official saying that he epitomised “very special people who came to us with their families as refugees not long ago and who have been helping others in dramatic phases of their lives ever since”.
The 49-year-old Social Democrat (SPOe) mayor added: “Delshad Bazari came to us as a refugee from Syria in 2014. A year later he was finally able to hug his family again. In the meantime, he has founded his own small company and has thus created a livelihood for himself and his family.”
The mayor said that Delshad had already helped other refugees back in 2015, shortly after arriving in Austria himself. And now, along with a colleague named as Norbert Ciperle, he reportedly set out on a 24-hour trip to bring supplies to refugees on the Ukrainian border.
The mayor added: “He is someone who acts. He is someone who always says: ‘I am so grateful that I was helped here in Austria back then and now I give this help wherever I can to others in need. I could not do otherwise.
“Dear Delshad, together with your amazing family, you are a beacon of light in our city. And I am so proud to have you as a personal friend, companion and role model.”
The Syrian Civil War is an ongoing crisis after beginning in 2011 during the Arab Spring.