Posted: Tuesday, 26 August 2008 7:04AM
NJ Sisters Return from Georgia
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MOUNT LAUREL, NJ (AP) -- Two sisters who endured a harrowing ordeal in the Republic of Georgia were greeted with balloons and cheers at New Jersey's main airport.
Seven-year-old Ashley Evans and her 3-year-old sister, Sophia, had been stranded for nearly two weeks at their grandparents' farm after Russia invaded the former Soviet state.
They finally arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport with their father Monday night, ending a trip that began as a summer holiday with their grandparents and turned into an international crisis.
The girls left the airplane with their father, Joseph, and were taken by airport security for a private reunion with their mother, Tea-h, who had stayed home in New Jersey.
``It was a very big exciting moment for me, a happy moment,'' Tea-h Evans said.
The family then walked together to a public waiting area where friends and relatives clapped and greeted them with balloons saying ``Welcome Home.''
Joseph Evans spoke briefly, recalling his reaction when he was first reunited with the girls last week in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.
``It was a moment that will be with me all my life ... I hadn't seen her in about five weeks, then Ashley came running over, this one (Sophia) was right behind her, so it was fantastic.
``I want to thank everybody, the White House, the Department of Defense, the State Department, the U.S. Embassy outpost, the police in Georgia,'' Evans said.
He offered special thanks to U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who had traveled to the former Soviet nation to help secure safe passage for the girls. Smith was at the airport to greet them.
Their mother, a chef in Howell, had not seen the girls since she left them with her parents in Georgia in early July.
She spent Monday preparing her daughters' favorite desserts - homemade ice cream and cupcakes. The desserts, she said, would be part of a special homecoming aimed at helping the girls forget how close they were to a bloody military invasion.
After Russia invaded Georgia, where Tea-h Evans was born and raised, checkpoints were set up, clamping down on movement within the country.
The girls' father said his younger daughter did not understand what was going on, but the older one did. He said she told him on the phone: ``I want to go home, the Russian troops are here.''
But he said the girls were able to keep playing on the farm and remained several miles from any violence.
The Evans girls were not allowed to leave until Smith, French Ambassador Eric Fournier and others worked through diplomatic channels to get them to the relative safety of Tbilisi.
Evans, a New Jersey Transit bus driver, met his daughters at the U.S. Embassy there last Thursday. They ate McDonald's Happy Meals after arriving.
It turned out that getting tickets out of Georgia was also complicated. But Monday, they were finally on their way home. |
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