Amilcar Djau Codjovi: Rising soccer star's harrowing escape from Ukraine

By Zayn Nabbi, CNN

Updated 0844 GMT (1644 HKT) March 3, 2022

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(CNN)With sirens blaring and explosions in the distance, it suddenly dawned on a fearful 20-year-old soccer player that he was in the middle of a warzone.

What Amilcar Djau Codjovi, who plays for Ukrainian soccer club Vorskla Poltava, didn't know was that he would spend the next two days frantically traveling the length and breadth of the country trying to find an escape route from Ukraine.In the end, his safe passage into Hungary was only secured after a call from the Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković.«February 22 was my birthday, and the very next night I heard gunshots,» Djau