TAMPA, Fla — Tampa-based Project DYNAMO says it safely completed another rescue mission of a newborn baby Friday from Ukraine.
During the mission, an 8-day-old Canadian boy named Aari was rescued from Ukraine's capital city of Kyiv amid the ongoing attacks from Russia.
The nonprofit's leaders say the baby was united with his parents.
Team members were able to enter a clinic in Kyiv where the baby was, get Aari to his parents in a city near the Polish border and safely move the family across the border in a span of two days.
The mission dubbed "Gemini 3" is the second successful mission to specifically rescue babies from Ukraine, a news release from Project DYNAMO explains.
“We’re deeply grateful to the Canadian embassy for the overwhelming support they provided before and throughout this,” Bryan Stern, co-founder of Project DYNAMO, wrote in a statement.
“Their help was truly imperative and it would have been far more difficult without their support.”
Two other similar missions were conducted at the same time earlier in March using an ambulance to transport twin American premature babies and a British premature baby.
So far, more than 215 men, women and children have been rescued and evacuated in the more than 20 missions by the members of the nonprofit.
More than 14,000 requests for evacuations have been received by the nonprofit, with many of the requests asking for help for children and elderly people. Members of Ukraine's Jewish community have also been asking for assistance, the organization said.
While President Joe Biden had previously urged Americans to leave Ukraine before the invasion, not everyone could. And, the U.S. State Department has maintained that it will not be able to help with evacuating Americans at this point.
So, the Tampa nonprofit stepped up. Project DYNAMO team members have been on the ground in Ukraine since January, carefully planning for the inevitable. As Russian forces entered Ukraine, the organization kicked its plans into motion.
Anyone interested in donating or learning more information about Project DYNAMO can click here.