Family split apart while trying to leave Ukraine finally reunited in Fredericton

Getting on a plane to come to Fredericton felt "too good to be true" to Shadrach Igogo.

He had been waiting months to come to Fredericton with his son Ivan — and be reunited with his wife, Faith Igogo, and their baby, Viktor — after months of trying to flee the war in Ukraine, facing visa delays and getting separated from his wife while seeking safety in the U.K. with Ivan.

Shadrach said when he first arrived at the airport with two-year-old Ivan, after being separated from Faith and Viktor for five months, it was a "precious moment."

"The goal was to finally be reunited as a family in the place of our dreams, and a place where we can call home," said Shadrach.

He said the last year has been filled with mixed emotions and it's been the most challenging time of his life.

Before last year, Shadrach said he and his family had hoped to move to Canada from Ukraine. 

Faith was completing her master's degree in health at the University of New Brunswick online from the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk. She's a pediatrician and had planned to move to Fredericton on her own once the pandemic settled down. The plan was for Shadrach and their son Ivan to join Faith and Viktor eventually.

"And here we are today. We ended the year actually in Canada," said Shadrach.

In February 2022, Shadrach said as the talk of war in Ukraine got more "heated" in the news, his family struggled with what to do. They bought essentials and filled their car, he said, but it wasn't until he saw smoke outside their condo window that it became real.

Faith was pregnant at the time and they decided to flee to a refugee camp in Romania. They later went to the U.K. because they had applied for a visa for a work trip before the war began. And that was only the beginning of their efforts to try to find safety.

Since Faith already had submitted a study-permit application to move to Canada, Shadrach said he didn't appy for one for himself and his son until Canada opened a program for Ukrainians affected by the war.

"We didn't think it was going to drag this long," said Shadrach.

But since he was born in Nigeria and not Ukraine, he didn't qualify for the program, so he was refused. But little Ivan did qualify as a Ukrainian citizen, having been born there.

Faith said Shadrach was given the option to apply under her study permit, but she knew they weren't going to get a response before the baby was born, so they made the decision to go back to Ukraine.