A constant flow of displaced Ukrainians, lined up for many hours at the customs checkpoint that separates Ukraine from salvation: Europe. On the other side of the border, they find a welcome, a hot meal and some clothing.
But the journey of Ukrainians to Siret, Romania’s first outpost across the border, is long. There, Fondazione Progetto Arca, a Milanese organization at the forefront of social inclusion in Italy, has manned a refreshment and reception point since the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in collaboration with the Spanish NGO Remar.
With humanitarian convoys that leave almost weekly, they welcome people, distribute basic necessities and coordinate the transit of Ukrainian refugees, but it does not stop there. President Alberto Sinigallia tells us about the critical situation that exists not so much on arrival in Romania as on the other side of the border, in Ukraine: “Columns of women, children and the elderly wait standing even for whole days. Under the snow, without food, without medicines. Accompanied by their despair.”
For this reason, Fondazione Progetto Arca, together with Remar, has decided to set up a reception point also in Ukraine, in Chernivtsi, where few NGOs go. At the moment they offer refreshment to those waiting to pass the border police checks, but now a tent of about four hundred square meters is under construction, which will offer a bed to over three hundred refugees.
Supporting Ukrainians in the hardest part of the journey
The spaces that Fondazione Progetto Arca have managed to set up so far are a tented camp and a gym: a makeshift reception system for all those who manage to pass through customs and reach Siret. “When they arrive on this side they widen their eyes, they are amazed to receive an organized welcome, surprised by this supportive embrace,” says Sinigallia.
Behind them there were hours of walking, of buses, of cars, to escape from the bombed-out cities, in the hope of reaching the border. “It’s a continuous flow of people, night and day. But so far the problem hasn’t been the relocation of Ukrainians. Almost everyone who arrives in Siret has a place to go, pieces of family around Europe, friends waiting for them. In addition, the Romanian government has set up an almost entrepreneurial people forwarding system by paying, in addition to the hiring of the driver, twenty euros per person transported”.
If for now the mechanism seems effective, and people easily find transport outside Romania, there is a risk that this system, which is impossible to monitor, will lead to trafficking. There are many women and children among those who are fleeing who must be protected.
The suffering is palpable on the Ukrainian side, where the continuous arrival of people fleeing and the delays due to customs controls create lines that seem to stretch for miles. “It is an exhausted humanity that we await. We realized that it made no sense to jostle for position where there is no lack of support and there are many NGOs, and to leave them isolated in the hardest moment of the journey. We went about 40 km inside the Ukrainian border and set up a refreshment point in Chernivtsi, where refugees are forced to queue for hours.
We are also preparing a dormitory with 170 bunk beds, to accommodate those in transit or those who simply have to wait. Those who have nowhere to go arrive at the border by car and wait. They wait to see if the conflict ends, and they return home, or gets worse, and they have to escape
Stories of brave Ukrainian women and men
While men over the age of eighteen are forced to stay and fight in Ukraine, it is women who are the protagonists of this exodus. “There are strong women we meet every day, who come to us with hardened eyes. But when they cross the border and realize that they have made it, they collapse. They still hear the sound of bombs, and they know that they are the bombs that now fall on their husbands, on the children they had to leave behind.”
Generations of women who set out on a journey, daughters who bring their elderly parents to safety, grandchildren who are waiting for their grandparents. “The elderly are among the last to leave their homes”, says Sinigallia, “partially because of stoic resistance and partially for the obvious difficulty in moving. Maria is one of those grandchildren. She travelled from Santa Teresa di Gallura, while her grandmother Halina, a resident of a village near Kyiv, paid for the trip to her neighbours so she could be accompanied to the border. When they finally met, they embraced each other with a long hug. Maria immediately accompanied her grandmother to the bathroom to help her change. Despite some problems in obtaining the necessary documents, she managed to take her with her to Sardinia. These are ordinary gestures, but in desperate conditions.”
Scenes that are repeated endlessly, all similar to each other in their humanity. “The emotional load is enormous. What tears us apart the most is witnessing the farewells of the fathers who accompany their families to the border, and then go back to fight. It happens all the time, but the torment is always the same.” The families remain alone, mothers who do what they can to keep their children safe, trying to make war less atrocious. “The goal is to return to Ukraine, to their lives. I hope it can happen as soon as possible, because at the moment the country is drained of its youth”, testifies Senigallia.
Emotional support for families
Julia fled Kyiv with her mother and two children, one two years old and one two months old. When they heard the first explosions, they loaded the car with the bare essentials and left. Her husband took a significant risk by accompanying them to the border with Romania, then he had to go back. One heartbreaking farewell after another. Fondazione Progetto Arca accompanied them to the airport of Suceava, to fly to Rome where her sister and brother-in-law were waiting her. Mother and daughter worked in the hospital in Kyiv, they left their patients without knowing what will happen to them. This, too, is war.
The most challenging task, even though right now the Romanian border still remains an area of little interest for the Russians and has not yet been hit by the bombing, is to provide emotional support. There are often families like those of Oxana and Yuri, who in the escape did not want to leave their dog behind and are now guests at a center in Via Aldini in Milan. “But there are many children who arrive terrified, who do not want to say goodbye to their fathers. They don’t understand what’s going on, but fear is in the air.”
Students of foreign origin
Alberto Sinigallia points out the people they have helped are not only Ukrainians. Many young people of foreign origin have also passed through the center set up by Fondazione Progetto Arca, who often encounter even more difficulty in escaping. “Many foreign students have been trapped in the country.
There were about 20,000 Indian students, 6,000 of whom we helped them reach the nearest airports to return home. A father left Los Angeles with the first available plane. His son, once he passed customs, waited for him for an hour standing under the snow, gaze fixed on the road. When his father arrived, before he even embraced his son, he knelt before us, as a sign of gratitude. In that moment, time stood still.”
The reception of Ukrainians in Italy, a humanitarian crisis only at the beginning
In a war that is still waging, after every new bombardment, there is only one certainty, explains Sinigalla: “The humanitarian crisis is only at the beginning, and it will not end when this conflict ends, which will hopefully be soon”. Those who cross the border today are part of a wealthy slice of the population, an upper middle class that has a support network in Europe, and money to survive. “They are wealthy people, who come with their pedigree animals. People accustomed to a high standard of living, quite different from other migrations. In that case, reception, when the local host families can no longer handle it, becomes even more problematic”.
For women, who, as we have already reported, risk suffering violence and discrimination, but also for children.
After the emergency phase, we will have to face an educational problem that looms dramatically. It will be necessary to create dedicated didactic profiles, also online. Ukrainian children do not speak Italian, and their inclusion in our school system is not obvious
According to Sinigallia, the real wave of migration is yet to come. Fondazione Progetto Arca has set up a first reception hub in Milan, with the support of the Municipal Civil Protection. Located in the Mortirolo underpass, near the Central Station, it also addresses health screening and problems related to Covid vaccines, “but we must be ready for future criticalities, both in Italy and at the border. Soon reception centres at the Ukrainian borders could move from a transit point to a stalemate.”
Translated by Adam Clark
