Angelina and her son Tim had only minutes to pack up their lives. Photo / Nick Ralph
Angelina and her son Tim had only minutes to pack up their lives. Photo / Nick Ralph
The NZ Herald is joining forces with World Vision to help as more than 2 million Ukrainian women and children flee their country in the world's fastest-growing humanitarian emergency since World War II. Today World Vision staffer Mike Bruce reports on the refugee exodus from the Romanian capital of Bucharest.
They had only a few hours to pack up their lives. To save their lives.
In the middle of that frenzy of emotions and decisions, Angelina asked her husband Egor whether she should pack their photo album.
"Looking at photos will only make you cry," he said.
Angelina, a 25-year-old mother, is speaking from the Romanian capital Bucharest, in a shelter for survivors of domestic violence which has offered up 40 of its 100 rooms to Ukrainian refugees like her, who are being supported by World Vision.
That album she left behind now lies somewhere under a mountain of rubble - all that remains of the couple's home in the besieged town of Irpin, one of the flashpoints of the Ukraine conflict, a city now battered beyond recognition.
Your urgent donation will provide vital essentials for children and families affected by the crisis in Ukraine. Please click here to donate now at worldvision.org.nz
Angelina's journey here has been a gruelling one. When the bombs began raining down close to the family home at 4am on February 24, they knew what they had to do.
By 10pm that night, they were on the road to the Polish border. Jammed into one vehicle were Angelina, her mother-in-law Iryna, 59, father-in-law Andrew, 59, sister Dasha, 29, sisters-in-law Xenia, 22, Maria, 19, Tatiana, 17, her 10-month-old son Tim and Bruno, the family dog – six women, a man, a baby and a dog.
The drive towards the Polish border was painfully slow as they found themselves in long queues alongside thousands of other families just as desperate to reach safety. At one point they inched forward just a single kilometre in 15 hours.
Snow was falling, and the temperature hovered around zero degrees Celsius. The car was packed to the brim, with a baby in need of constant feeding and changing.
It was cramped, it was cold, it was tense, yet the family had no choice but to wait and hope they'd get to safety before the fighting came any closer.
An elderly lady is assisted to cross the Irpin river on an improvised path under a bridge, that was destroyed by Ukrainian troops designed to slow any Russian military advance. Photo / AP
They reached the border point only to be told the heartbreaking news that her father-in-law Andrew wouldn't be allowed to leave the country.
Just two weeks shy of his 60th birthday, and so considered an able-bodied man, he would have to stay in Ukraine.
Angelina cries as she tells me that the family were forced into tearful goodbyes and long embraces on the side of the road, not knowing if and when they'd see their husband, father, father-in-law and grandfather ever again.
The next few days were spent hugging Ukraine's western borders, trying to find a way out, as every potential border crossing was overrun with those fleeing. Angelina's husband Egor, and Andrew were constantly on their minds. Angelina says at that point, they didn't know if they would ever make it out of their besieged country.
Finally, they found a crossing in the north-western pocket of Romania.
The six women, baby Tim and Bruno, with few possessions and even fewer connections, boarded a train to Bucharest's Gara de Nord station, where they were helped by a women's shelter and offered refuge.
Gara de Nord has become the main hub for refugees arriving into the country. Tents within the large station offer temporary refuge and first aid; volunteers help disorientated and distressed Ukrainians plan their next move.
The family planned to visit the United States embassy in Bucharest with the hope of securing visas to join Iryna's son, Ivan, who lives in Florida.
The visa would be their ticket out of the hell that had engulfed their world the past few weeks. They knew their chance of securing one was slim, but they were clinging to any hope, no matter how faint.
But the next day brought two serious blows – not only were they denied any prospect of entering the US, but they received a video showing their homes – which had been side by side – completely destroyed by an airstrike.
The footage left little doubt – nothing from their previous lives would be salvaged from the two homes, now just a tangle of timber and stone, like countless others in Irpin.
Baby Tim with his grandmother and aunt in the women's shelter in Bucharest. Photo / Nick Ralph
If it wasn't enough to be refugees of a brutal conflict, the six women had now lost everything they owned, apart from a few essentials they carried in small backpacks.
The lives they'd built for themselves, gone in an instant. The gardens they'd tended to, their favourite books, hand-embroidered family treasures, and of course, the photo album.
Asked what they need now, Angelina says: "What we need is some hope. What we need is a future.
"All we think about is a future. What does our future look like?
"My biggest hope right now is that my husband is still alive and that he survives this war."
Ukraine Crisis Appeal: Where your money goes
Your support will help children and families affected by the crisis in Ukraine with
• Psychosocial support to help kids cope with trauma
Your urgent donation will provide vital essentials for children and families affected by the crisis in Ukraine. Please click here to donate now at worldvision.org.nz
