CHISINAU, Moldova: Thousands of Ukrainian children who have found shelter in hastily converted housing facilities across central and eastern Europe are struggling to come to terms with their new reality as refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of their country.
According to figures released by UNICEF on Tuesday, children account for about half of the more than 3 million Ukrainians who have fled their country, mostly for Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova, since the invasion began on Feb. 24.
Countries bordering Ukraine have provided sanctuary to a seemingly unending flow of refugees, and their authorities are facing the additional, monumental task of providing long-term mental care to traumatized Ukrainian children.
Over the past 20 days an average of 55 children have been fleeing Ukraine every minute and the trend is unlikely to change as Russian forces continue their advance. New arrivals are expected to overwhelm underfunded and poorly managed public schools in tiny Moldova, but also in relatively affluent Poland — the fifth-most populous member state of the European Union — where classes are held in Polish, which most Ukrainians do not speak.
Psychologists say young Ukrainian refugees appear unable to comprehend the longer-term nature of their absence from home and separation from their fathers, who are forbidden to leave Ukraine in order to fight in the war.
Some insist they are on a short vacation or a school break, said Irina Purcari, a school psychologist working with Ukrainian children at the biggest refugee center in Moldova’s capital, Chisinau.
Upon arriving at the center, “most children are alarmed, reluctant to make contact,” Purcari said. ”But we take the first steps to win them over and lower their anxiety levels.”
Purcari said children speak of their fathers “not in the context of hostilities,” possibly as a way create a sense of calm and feel that their life is in order.
For 34 year-old Ukrainian Tamara Bercuta, her first full night’s sleep after many weeks happened on Monday when she and her children arrived in Chisinau. She watched her 10 year-old daughter and 4 year-old son draw in a corner of the town’s biggest refugee center that has been converted into a play area. Like many other children, her son first reached for crayons in the colors of his country’s flag — blue and yellow.
“It is very bad when there is a war, a (mortar) shell hit a roadblock, many people died,” Bercuta said, recalling the horrors she and her children had witnessed during their flight from Mykolayiv, the strategic Ukrainian city that witnessed fierce battles for days.
“At home I was afraid because we were constantly (hiding) in corridors and in the basement,” her daughter, Liliya, interjected.
In Poland, which has taken in more than 1.8 million refugees from Ukraine, there are growing concerns about how to integrate those who elected to stay rather to relocate to other countries as they have friends and family there.
Before Russia’s invasion, around 1.5 million Ukrainians lived in Poland.
On Wednesday, in Przemysl — a normally sleepy Polish border town of 60,000 — trains continued releasing scores of refugees.
Among them was 41-year-old Svitlana Bibikova, from the Kyiv region, with her three pre-teen children in tow. Along the way, she said, every noise, even the sound of the train braking, made her kids tremble with fear. Her 11-year-old daughter, Dasha, recalled the first morning back home when she was woken up by the sounds of exploding Russian rockets and mortars and how her “mother said that the war began.”
“We might stay here until it is over and then we will return home,” her 10-year-old sister, Arina, rushed to add.
Nadia Chernenko, 33, from the Dnipro region in central Ukraine, said she tried protecting her children by not mentioning the war and telling them that the loud booming sounds “were just firecrackers exploding and that everything will soon go back to normal.”
Still, she added, “I am afraid that they have been scarred” for life.
In a six-story business center in central Warsaw that serves as a home for the most vulnerable refugees, Irina Panasevicz, an Ukraine-born volunteer, said her days consisted of endless calls to day care facilities and schools to find places for newly arrived children.
“Kids have big problems to adapt in classrooms because classes are conducted in Polish and most children from Ukraine do not speak Polish,” Panasevicz said.
Despite the obstacles they face, Ukrainian children of different ages mingled and played in a long hallway outside Panasevicz’s office in the building they now call home.
For them, what was a normal childhood a few weeks ago has been supplanted by the fear of Russian soldiers.
“Russia is making war with Ukraine, we want Russia not to take us,” said 7-year-old Bogdan Kolesnik, wiggling nervously on his mother’s lap.
“We want to return home, but we do not know when that will be possible,” said 14-year-old Juna Berzika, as she sat with her mother Svitlana and a group of other women recounting the horror of escaping Ukraine and the fear of what male relatives left behind will face.
Ukraine’s child refugees a huge challenge for host countries
https://arab.news/9msmf
Ukraine’s child refugees a huge challenge for host countries
- According to figures released by UNICEF on Tuesday, children account for about half of the more than 3 million Ukrainians who have fled their country
- New arrivals are expected to overwhelm underfunded and poorly managed public schools in tiny Moldova
French volunteer bakes for Ukraine amid frosts and power outages
- The French volunteer, who calls himself a “baker without borders,” wants to help them through an especially cold winter
- Loic works alone and starts early, but he still manages to bake around 700 loaves a day
BORODYANKA, Ukraine: In a truck parked in the Kyiv region, Loic Nervi kneaded the dough vigorously before sliding dozens of tins into the oven — loaves that will later be handed out to Ukrainians.
By making bread, the French volunteer, who calls himself a “baker without borders,” wants to help them through an especially cold winter, marked by repeated power and heating cuts caused by Russian strikes.
Loic works alone and starts early, but he still manages to bake around 700 loaves a day, making locals flock in lines before his white truck.
“I knew there were problems with electricity and heating in Kyiv. It’s the first time I’ve come here and worked here in the Kyiv region and in Kyiv itself,” explained the volunteer, who already did a few missions in Ukraine.
Throughout these trips, he distributed tens of thousands of loaves since the start of the war in 2022, mostly to elderly people who have no support from their families or from the state, Nervi said.
“It’s important to keep supporting (Ukrainians),” the Frenchman told AFP, while admitting that “most French people no longer want to — they’re tired and don’t want to hear about this war anymore.”
“But no, the war is still ongoing,” said the strong-armed baker, sporting a short bristle of beard.
Working in his truck powered by two generators, he makes two main types of bread: a multigrain loaf with sunflower, sesame, poppy and flax seeds, designed to be filling and nutritious, and a soft white sandwich-style bread made with milk, sugar and eggs.
“I travel frequently — so I also leave my family behind, and it’s very hard for them. It’s a sacrifice I make for Ukraine, a personal and family sacrifice,” said Loic.
“But I think it’s worth it, because if everyone only thinks about their own comfort, we won’t move forward,” he added.
Moscow has in recent months conducted a series of massive drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, causing extensive power, water and heating outages.
The attacks, which especially targeted the capital Kyiv, come at a moment of particularly biting temperatures in Ukraine, which have dropped to as low as -20C throughout winter.
Ukraine, for its part, targeted power infrastructure in the Russian border regions and oil refineries across the country.
