More than 1.5 million refugees have been forced to leave their homes in Ukraine since the Russian military offensive began.
War changes everything. “I wanted to leave home,” Ulyana, from Odessa, laments between sobs. The Russian invasion that began twelve days ago sowed terror in Ukraine. Thousands of citizens packed the first thing they found in their homes and headed for the country’s border to leave the bombs behind.
“I needed to get to Frankfurt, where some friends were going to receive me, but the airport was closed,” explains Ulyana, who sent a message to all her contacts saying “If you or your friends are leaving, let me know please, that I want to go too.” The passage of time became hell for her. Minutes seemed like hours until she finally received a message from her friend Ekaterina, who was leaving by car with her two children for Moldova.
The road to this former Soviet republic took about fourteen hours; twelve of them passed through a twenty-kilometre traffic jam at a checkpoint. “We were worried that they wouldn’t let us through, but after checking our passports, five minutes later we entered Moldova and headed for Chisinau,” says Ulyana. Like her, thousands of Ukrainians have crossed the border to flee the war.
In total, more than 1.5 million refugees have been forced from their homes since the offensive began, the UNHCR confirmed on Sunday, in what it has described as Europe’s fastest-growing exodus since World War II. .
During this time, Poland, which has authorized refuges in presidential residences, is the country that has received the most refugees, almost 925,000. Some 169,000 have arrived in Hungary and as many in Slovakia. Romania has received 71,640 and Germany, 37,800. They have also crossed the border with Russia around 53,000 people, according to the UNHCR balance. Despite having moved away from the bombs, Ulyana is clear on one thing. “I don’t know when we can go home yet, but we will.”
“Endless Horror”
“My family endured eight days of war in Kiev. It seemed like a kind of endless horror, but in the end patience was broken », explains Alena, who on Thursday encouraged her relatives to leave Ukraine. Some stayed. “We said goodbye as if we were going to separate forever.” Fear of bombing also pushed Natalia to go to the train station, where she set off for Poland with her children, Danil and Adelina, and she found a safe haven in Koszalin. “My husband stayed in Lviv to defend his homeland against Putin’s troops.”
The exodus is distressing. “People at the station were pushed into the carriages. Everyone wanted to leave, with or without a ticket,” recalls Lucie, a medical student from Cameroon who was studying in Kharkiv when the war broke out. When crossing the border she had problems. «The cordon of soldiers did not want to let us pass. They held the bus for three hours. She though she is already glad to be in Poland. “Everyone here is very kind to us.”
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