Korczowa, make a note of the name of this Polish town, with not even a thousand inhabitants, on the border with Ukraine. In a former shopping centre turned into a shelter for refugees fleeing the war, there are women and children, who sometimes are very young. In the corridors of what was once a glittering mall there are over two thousand camp beds, as can be seen in the previously unseen videos that we are publishing here.
The wires stretched between the walls, used to hang blankets, sometimes even the gold and silver thermal ones, are the miserable attempt to have a little privacy.
The men remained in Ukraine to fight.
Children and war
But not even here can the children escape the horrors they’ve witnessed. On the walls of the shelter, in the space dedicated to them, they draw tanks and write “boom, boom”, the noise of missiles and bombs. But it’s not a game, it’s war.
Since the beginning of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, refugees fleeing to Europe have reached over 1 million and 700 thousand, more than 100 thousand a day.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi we are facing “the fastest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War”
According to the EU, up to 5 million refugees are expected in a few weeks, while more than 10 million Ukrainians have fled their homes to escape the slow but inexorable advance of Soviet tanks. They flee to Poland and Romania, along insecure humanitarian corridors. The other corridors that have been offered, by Russia and Aljaksandr Lukašėnka’s Belarus, a very close ally to Vladimir Putin, are certainly not the first choice of fleeing Ukrainians who aim for Europe and often for reunification with their families who settled in the West.
Temporary refugees
The EU, with a unity that has overcome even the most reluctant positions of the Visegrad Bloc countries, has guaranteed Ukrainians the status of temporary refugees for a year, automatically renewable for another 12 months, with just the presentation of a passport. A measure adopted by the EU on the basis of Directive 55 of 2001, born as a result of the war in Kosovo, and never applied until now. Indeed, in 2015 it was rejected by some member countries against Syrian refugees and then again in 2021 for Afghan refugees.
In Italy, almost 20 thousand Ukrainian refugees have arrived, the last certain figure dates back to Sunday when there were 14,237, of which more than a third, 5,762, are minors. There are no quotas for now, not in Europe, which is relying on the goodwill of individual countries, nor in Italy, where many people are volunteering to help and the Regional governors have been appointed Commissioners for the emergency. In Friuli Venezia Giulia, the border region with Eastern Europe where the first arrivals were recorded, adult refugees are given 28 euros a day as pocket money, in addition to housing, clothes and food.
Refugees and Covid-19
School admission has been granted to school-age children while General Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, until March 31 Commissioner for the Pandemic, has given instructions to the Regions to expand the vaccination campaign to refugees. In Ukraine only 35% of the population is vaccinated, according to the latest WHO data. For refugees injured during the escape or those with underlying health problems 1300 beds have already been prepared in our hospitals. But no one today knows how long the war will last or how many refugees will make it to Europe or to Italy where, before the conflict, 248,000 Ukrainians already lived. But what is expected is an unprecedented human tide, marching towards the borders of Poland and Romania, towards the Korczowa refugee center where children draw the tanks and the sounds of the war on the walls, trying to understand what’s happened to their friends and family who have died.
Translated by Adam Clark
Photo: Flickr/UN Women and Central Asia
