Ukrainians live with uncertainty in Egypt resort city

STORY: Golovkin and his family first travelled to Marsa Alam for their annual holiday ten days before Russia invaded Ukraine in February in an offensive that so far has killed thousands, uprooted millions and reduced cities to rubble.

Now they are renting an apartment in Sharm El Sheikh with their Russian friend and her daughter, and have become part of a small community of Ukrainians stuck in the resort city.

Their trip was scheduled to end on the same day of the war. With the news of the invasion which Russia calls a special operation, the two families knew that going back to their hometown in Kharkiv would be delayed.

Up to 20,000 Ukrainian tourists in Egypt had been stranded by the conflict, mostly at resorts on the Red Sea, Ukraine's ambassador to Cairo said in February.