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The security guard, Kiryl Shremko, was laid to rest in the Afula cemetery at 5:00 PM Sunday. His funeral had been delayed while the attempt to locate his family in Russia was underway. His father works near the Russian-Japanese border, a fact which made finding him a difficult task. Locating his mother also proved challenging as she was living deep in the mountains of Ural. The search for the parents, to report the tragic news of their son's murder while defending the State of Israel, was the work of the Interior Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, as well as the representative of the Jewish Agency in the Ural mountains region.
The heroic quick thinking of the late Shremko, and the other guard (hospitalized in serious condition) on duty during the Afula attack, saved countless lives. Kiryl immigrated by himself from Russia three years ago. After finishing ulpan, Kiril volunteered for a combat position in the IDF. His ambition after being released from the army was to become a security guard at a local shopping mall. He approached the director of the shopping mall in Afula for a position but was turned down. Kiril would not be deterred, however, and finally convinced the director to hire him. He was killed the first day on the job, after blocking the terrorist with his body. His mother and brother were planning on coming to Israel this September.
Ran Azar, the Agency's chief of mission in Yekaterinburg, located the mother and brother of the fallen security guard in the Ural town of Neftamsk (over an hour's flight and four hours drive away). Though the pair did not have passports or visas, he had them flown from the nearest city (Ufa) to Moscow where Jewish Agency personnel met them. With the help of the Israeli Consulate General in Moscow he cut through Russian and Israeli red tape and had them issued special travel documents and flight tickets to Israel. They arrived in Israel on Thursday.
In the meanwhile, the Agency located the father of the murdered security guard on a business trip in a far away Siberian town. He, too, was flown to Moscow and from there to Israel. Jewish Agency representatives are currently with the family assisting them through this difficult time.
Mr. Azar heads a mission whose responsibility extends over the entire Ural area (an area which is one seventh that of Russia). Some 70,000 people eligible to immigrate to Israel reside in his area of responsibility. His mission is in charge of not only promoting and processing immigration, but also Israel-centered education, including intensive Hebrew classes and Jewish identity courses as well as youth and student activities.