501 deportee turned evangelical preacher evacuating civilians from Ukraine

Monday, 4 April 2022

Kiwi Owen Pomana is helping with the humanitarian effort in Ukraine by raising money to evacuate civilians and provide food. (Video first published April 4, 2022.)

A 501 deportee who turned his life around after finding God and becoming a preacher has been in Ukraine assisting with the humanitarian effort.

Owen Pomana was a meth-addicted gang member in Australia who turned his life around before getting deported. Now he’s on a mission of redemption.

An evangelical preacher, Pomana said he wanted to show the Australian government that deportees could change.

Owen Pomana has been assisting with the humanitarian effort in Ukraine with funding evacuations and food.

The 51-year-old has raised $35,000 through his church, he said, that’ll go towards assisting resettlement for Ukrainian refugees and sending food into Ukraine.

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Owen Pomana (left) with others working on evacuating Ukrainian civilians.

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$21,000 had been spent on buses and vans to transport Ukrainians into neighbouring countries, he said.

“There’s some really kind and generous people out there.”

Pomana was working with a Romanian church and an evangelical group on supporting refugees once they fled the country.

“The Christian network is getting in way before government networks,” he said.

A rocket is buried in the ground in Bucha, Ukraine.

Pomana had also spent four days in Ukraine. He went on one operation evacuating civilians out of the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv in vans.

“It’s [Kyiv] a beautiful ghost town at present.”

The Kyiv to Chernihiv drive was two-and-a-half hours normally, but was four hours with all the checkpoints, Pomana said.

A dog drinks water next to destroyed Russian armoured vehicles in Bucha, Ukraine.

“We turn up at an evacuation point and people just jump on a van.”

Some people who were deemed too frail to make the journey were left behind.

“The only people left behind are the elderly.

A man stands as smoke rises in the air in the background after shelling in Odessa.

“I got to hold and cuddle an elderly lady as if she was my own grandma,” he said.

The five vans were able to take in food and then evacuate around 20 families.

Several days later, two vans from the network were hit by missiles and multiple people died, he said.

Pomana brushed off any danger of getting killed by the Russians, who have targeted civilians.

“Going out in a blaze of glory, that would be fun,” he said.

He said the network had evacuated “thousands” of civilians, and although he arrived towards the end of it, he could still play a role.

Pomana said he was a “bargainer” and was going to try and broker a cease-fire with the Russians to try and get humanitarian aid into Russia controlled areas.

“It’s a story of the destruction of humanity,” he said.

But first, his goal was to get body armour for aid workers.

Next he said he planned to try and get food into besieged Mariupol, but it was now too dangerous. Instead, 40 tonnes of food is going to head to Zaporizhzhia.

That programme is being run with Tony Anthony, Pomana said, a former English gangster who also turned his life around and started a church.

Pomana thinks conditions in the country are only going to get worse and is worried about what will happen after the war.

“When the war finished, the love and offering will end,” he said.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Pomana was in Switzerland trying to learn how to combat child sex trafficking, and after the war he said he would head to Tajikistan to help another programme there.