Girlfriend of freed hostage Sasha Troufanov: He prayed I would find someone else to love
‘He didn’t want me waiting for a man he thought would never return home. He didn’t believe he would survive,’ Sapir Cohen tells media; mother Yelena: ‘It’s a miracle he’s standing’
The girlfriend of newly freed hostage Sasha Troufanov said Sunday he had told her he’d prayed in captivity that she’d find another man to love, as he believed he would never be coming home.
“Thank God I have the privilege to stand here today,” Sapir Cohen told media at Sheba Medical Center.
“Last night, Sasha told me that during all this time [since he was taken hostage and held in Gaza], he prayed for me to find a man to love, prayed that I wouldn’t wait for him,” she said, her voice shaking. “He didn’t want me waiting for a man he thought would never return home. He didn’t believe he would survive.”
Cohen and Troufanov were both taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, along with Sasha’s mother and grandmother. The three women were freed during a November 2023 ceasefire.
With Troufanov safely home following his release on Saturday, Cohen said she’d now fulfilled the dreams she’d had since October 7, “dreams I never thought in my life I would have: to come home alive from captivity in Gaza and getting to hug Sasha again.”
She thanked all those who were part of the effort to bring the hostages home, soldiers who fought in Gaza and the families of the bereaved.
“To call you soldiers is to minimize what you did,” she said. “You are role models who show what unity is, what solidarity is. Thank you for showing us that it is possible.”
She thanked those who “did everything possible to change this twisted reality, and who raised our spirits every day and gave us hope. I thank God every day for the privilege I have been given to meet so many good people.”
“We must continue on this path and bring all the hostages back home. I wish that with God’s help, we the people of Israel will very soon become the family of the free.”
Sasha’s mother, former hostage Yelena Troufanov, whose husband Vitaly was killed on October 7 at their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, said she’d been given back her “life, soul and heart” with Sasha’s release home.
“He came home in one piece,” said Troufanov. “He was shot in both legs and for us, it’s a miracle that he’s standing and walking.”
Troufanov thanked all those who’d supported and helped her over the many months, including the Russian government, the Hostages Forum and her son’s friends.
“I didn’t know them before, and today they are my family,” she said.
“Despite all my happiness, I do not for a moment forget all the hostages who remain in captivity. We have to do everything to get them all out now. We will continue to fight, and we will continue to pray.”
Troufanov met Sunday with Mor Korgold, the brother of hostage Tal Shoham, who was taken hostage from Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 and is slated to be freed in the first stage of the ceasefire deal. Tal was kidnapped along with his wife, two children, mother-in-law, and a number of other relatives who were freed in November 2023.
Korngold posted a photo of himself with Troufanov on Instagram, writing that the pair “sat and talked and ate.” He said when Troufanov heard he was active on social media, “he asked me to send a message in his name.”
“The time has come to end the game of Russian roulette and save everyone,” the freed hostage said, according to the message. “I thank all of my friends and those who fought for my return and I ask you to keep up the struggle to bring everyone back.”
At the press conference, freed hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen’s wife Avital said her husband had survived through his love for his family. She said her husband had pointed out to her that 498 days were over 43 million seconds. The hostages, he told her, “don’t count days or hours or minutes — they count seconds in hell.”
The three hostages released over the weekend — Troufanov, Dekel-Chen and Iair Horn — have reported to Israeli officials the difficult conditions of their captivity.
They said there was a constant shortage of food and water, that at times they ate food that was not fit for human consumption, and sometimes drank seawater, Kan reported.
They were not given any information about what was going on in the outside world, the report said.
Troufanov, who was alone in his captivity, was sometimes left chained by himself in a dark tunnel, and believed he would not survive, Kan reported.
Horn said he was kept in a narrow, low tunnel and that at one point he met his brother, Eitan, who is also a hostage, but was forbidden to speak more than a few words with him by their guards, according to Channel 12.
Dekel-Chen reportedly brought with him signs of life from three other hostages still held in the Gaza Strip. The relevant families have received the information and will decide whether to make it public, Channel 12 news and the Ynet news site reported, the latter citing Dekel-Chen’s aunt.
Kan reported that Horn and Dekel-Chen said hostages held with them had been physically and mentally abused.
Seventy of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas has so far released 24 hostages — civilians, soldiers, and Thai nationals — during a ceasefire that began in January. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that.
Eight hostages were rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages were also recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military, as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza in January.
