You're reading: Huffington Post: As Islamophobia rises in many countries, Muslims find unlikely sanctuary in western Ukraine

Huffington Post: As Islamophobia rises in many countries, Muslims find unlikely sanctuary in western Ukraine

By Huffington Post.

Published Sept. 13, 2016 at 5:22 pm

Local people walk past a mosque in old part of Simferopol, on September 10, 2016, two days before the sacrificial Eid al-Adha festival.

Photo by VASILY MAXIMOV / AFP

LVIV, Ukraine - Ernes and Alime Mambetov have been living with their 2-year-old son in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv for a little over a year. Both are practicing Muslims and Crimean Tatars that fled Crimea for mainland Ukraine after Russia's military seized control of the peninsula in 2014.

When they left in June of that year, young Crimean Tatar men were disappearing and reported to be abducted under the new Russian authorities. Ernes feared he could be next.