An 11-year-old Ukrainian boy took a 700-mile train journey to Slovakia alone with just a bag and his passport

• An 11-year-old Ukrainian boy traveled to Slovakia with only a bag, passport, and phone number.
• Once in Slovakia, authorities fed the boy, kept him warm, and reunited him with relatives.

An 11-year-old Ukrainian boy fled to Slovakia to escape Russian bombs with just a passport, plastic bag, and phone number written on his hand, according to the Ministry of Slovakia.

The boy, whose name has not been released, boarded a train in Zaporizhzhia, a city in southeast Ukraine and home to Europe's biggest nuclear power plant. On Friday, Russian troops attacked the site and took control of the facility, Insider previously reported.

The boy's mother Yulia Pisetskaya said she stayed in Ukraine because she needed to care for her disabled mother, Pisetskaya said on Facebook according to a translation reported in The Guardian.

Since learning about the boy's journey, Slovakia authorities have called the boy a "hero."

"Little Hassan is only 11 years old, but in his way, he has shown huge determination, courage, and fearlessness that sometimes adults don't have," Slovakia's Interior Minister Roman Mikulec wrote on Facebook on Monday.

The boy traveled nearly 700 miles on a train, where he crossed the Slovakian border on Friday night, according to the Huffington Post. There, border guards looked after the boy, kept him warm, and gave him food and water, according to the Slovakian interior ministry on Facebook. Using the phone number on his hand and a piece of paper in his waist, authorities tracked down his relatives who were in the Slovakia capital of Bratislava, the interior ministry wrote on Facebook.

"I am very grateful that they saved the life of my child," Pisetskaya said in the Facebook video. "In your small country, there are people with big hearts."

Pisetskaya continued in the video saying, "I am a widow and I have more children. I want to thank the Slovak customs and volunteers who took care of my son and helped him cross the border. I am grateful you have saved my child's life. Next to my town is a nuclear power plant that the Russians are shooting at. I couldn't leave my mother – she can't move on her own."

The boy is one of more than 2 million refugees who have fled Ukraine, according to numbers from the United Nations.

Slovakia's interior minister Roman Mikulec and representatives for the Slovakia Embassy in the US did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.