Vanya Stsetsenka's family, who was undergoing rehabilitation in Dubai, urgently returned home.
The boy did not manage to complete rehabilitation due to the situation in the Persian Gulf.
Hrodna resident Vanya Stsetsenka, for whom money was raised for treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, received the necessary drug in Dubai, but could not undergo rehabilitation there — the family was forced to return home. The boy's parents decided that staying in the Emirates was dangerous. Vanya's mother, Alexandra, shared on Instagram about their departure:
"We left everything and flew away. At eleven o'clock in the evening, we accidentally learned about the cancellation of our flight for March 26. March 11 was the last evacuation flight, and all flights were canceled until the end of March. A spontaneous decision, we changed the ticket and flew off, the last 5 tickets, the price was twice as high, but they changed it for us without additional payment. . Vanka was already frightened after the cast, weakened + periodic explosions."
The woman also noted that she doubted the correctness of the decision to fly until the last moment, as Vanya had not undergone the rehabilitation that had been prescribed for him.
Drones fell near the airport, passengers were evacuated to the basement, the plane was delayed for three hours, and they had to pay extra for suitcases and the hotel.
The Stsetsenka family flew to Dubai in December 2025. In a local clinic in February 2026, Vanya was given the necessary drug Elevidys, which cost 2.9 million dollars.
Earlier, Alexandra Stsetsenka said that after the strikes on March 1, the clinic canceled appointments for a day for the safety of young patients. Now, according to her, everything is quiet, but tonight there were still alarming (and very loud) notifications on phones.
"It's just quiet now. But it's stressful," the Belarusian woman said. "I read in the news that today there was an oil fire in the industrial area of Fujairah due to drone debris, but it seems there were no casualties. I don't know if it's been put out yet. Of course, we heard nothing here, it's more than 200 kilometers away.
However, at the end of our stay, we found out that there are no shelters in the Emirates at all. We'd rather have continued living without this knowledge. As shelters, there are underground parking lots or the metro, or simply when an alert is announced, they tell you to stay in the hotel. Well, we're sitting here. Shops and restaurants are working as usual."
It is worth recalling that a scandal was associated with the fundraising — two bloggers, Mikhail Dragun and Yauhenia Tarasenka, who volunteered to help and also started collecting money, were detained on suspicion of fraud. Of the 1.5 million rubles collected, they gave the boy's mother 200 thousand. About a million rubles were spent on themselves. A criminal case has been initiated against the bloggers. The missing amount was covered by the bloggers' funds.