Former Fox59 anchor covering Ukrainian crisis for Fox News: 'There's so much uncertainty'

Aishah Hasnie's career has been a rollercoaster since leaving the anchor's chair at Fox59 for a spot at Fox News in 2019.

The weekend she started as a New York City correspondent, the city shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The weekend she moved to Washington, D.C. to accept a promotion as a congressional correspondent, Kabul fell to the Taliban.

"I think I have bad luck," Hasnie said with a laugh over the phone Thursday. "Every time I move somewhere, something bad happens."

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Hasnie, who grew up in Bedford and graduated from Indiana University before spending a decade at local affiliates in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, now finds herself covering one of the world's largest stories: the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing refugee crisis.

She landed in southeastern Poland on Sunday. It looks rather remarkably like Indiana, she said — mostly rural, with farms and fields and similar-looking houses dotting the landscape.

The glaring exceptions would be the two military transports she saw on Wednesday, the anti-air missile launchers perched along the Ukrainian border and the waves of frightened refugees — almost all women, children and the elderly, she noted.

"The Poles are nervous," she explained, "and everyone I've talked to feels like we are at the brink of World War III. And I realize if you're sitting in the Midwest, it feels a little like 'oh, maybe not.' But it really feels like that here."

"Just a few miles away from where I'm standing, there's an actual war going on," she continued. "And there's so much uncertainty as to what might happen next."

Hasnie has long sought a foreign correspondence assignment and has a particular interest in covering refugee crises.

Her paternal grandparents fled to Pakistan during the religiously motivated partition of India in 1947. She recalls the harrowing family tale of her heavily pregnant grandmother being spared by a sword-wielding mercenary bent on hunting Muslims.

"She said that was a moment of mercy that saved all of us," Hasnie said. "I would not be standing here in Poland right now if that man had not shown my grandmother mercy."

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As she seeks to tell the stories of Ukrainian refugees and the unfolding humanitarian crisis, Hasnie is constantly reminded of her own family's decision to leave it all behind. It's particularly emotional because she understands what their futures may hold.

"Just knowing how this usually works — it's heartbreaking because they probably won't be able to go back," she said. "They'll probably never be able to have that routine life with their neighbors and their jobs and their children's schools."

She feels particularly concerned for the elderly, whom she said now will likely have to live out their days in a foreign country where they neither know the language nor anyone living there.

Her first few Fox News segments from Poland have covered a Californian nurse and Polish teachers volunteering to assist the Ukrainian refugees.

In addition to her journalistic interest in the refugees' stories, Hasnie also serves on the board of the American nonprofit arm of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

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She said the trip to Poland allows her to pull "double duty" as a journalist and representative of UNHCR, which has provided aid to the refugees.

"Helping refugees and making sure they have the dignity throughout this entire process is incredibly important to me, and (UNHCR is) on the ground here," Hasnie said.

Prior to arriving in Poland, Hasnie reported on a 19-year-old Afghan refugee living in Kyiv now forced to flee war for the second time in a year. She referred the woman to a nonprofit, which has since moved her to Switzerland, Hasnie said.

"It's these stories in the midst of chaos that really show the best of humanity," she said. "And I think it's really important for (journalists) to cut through some of that chaos and destruction and the horrifying details coming out of this war to tell stories about people coming together and helping each other."

Rory Appleton is the pop culture reporter at IndyStar. Contact him at 317-552-9044 and rappleton@indystar.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RoryDoesPhonics

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Ukraine: Fox News reporter from Indiana covering crisis from Poland