Belarus: I’m ready to beg for help, says mother of detained woman

For Anna Dudich, nothing will ever be the same again.

Her daughter, Sofia Sapega, was on board Ryanair Flight 4978 from Athens to Vilnius when the plane was forcibly diverted to the capital of Belarus. 

Sofia and her boyfriend, the prominent opposition activist Roman Protasevich, were arrested on arrival in Minsk.

"We are in such a state that we don't believe this is happening to us, to our daughter," Dudich tells me, her eyes brimming with tears.

The last she heard from her daughter was a text message with a single word, "Mama", before the phone went dead.

"I'm ready to beg anyone for help, so my child's life isn't broken," Dudich says.

When we meet, she's just dropped off a parcel of clothes, food and toiletries – no books allowed – at the KGB prison where Sapega, 23, has been remanded in custody for two months. 

Relatives are not permitted to visit, so all Dudich has seen of her daughter is a video where she confesses to publishing the personal data of Belarusian security forces.

She was deeply upset at seeing her daughter in distress and is sure she was speaking under duress. Sofia twists and turns in the video clip, rolling her eyes, which Anna says isn't at all normal for her.

She tells me that Sapega, who was born in Russia, is not an activist and didn't even join last year's protests after the disputed presidential elections. She left for Vilnius in Lithuania in August. She believes her daughter was arrested solely because of her link to Roman Protasevich, who she began dating about six months ago.

"I don't understand why my daughter was detained,"Dudich says. "She's just living her life like a normal young woman – studying, having fun and in love. No one banned that, did they? I just can't get my head around it."