Chad Martz has spent the last few days in a mountainous region of western Ukraine buying food and basic supplies for those who fled their homes due to the Russian invasion of the country.
Posted at 7:59 p.m.
But the Canadian citizen, who has been in Ukraine for months because of his work with a British Columbia aid organization, is avoiding traveling elsewhere in the country himself.
“The area I’m in […] didn’t receive any attacks, so she remained relatively calm,” he said in a phone interview on Friday.
“The situation will have to be draconian enough for us to leave. We are in a very good position to provide much-needed care to people who are leaving everything behind,” he said.
Mr. Martz, his Ukrainian wife and their teenage daughter traveled to Ukraine in July as part of their work with Hungry For Life, a relief group based in Chilliwack, British Columbia. Martz said he has been traveling to Ukraine regularly for 18 years.
Continuous shelling of roads and bridges since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine this week has made it difficult for people to travel from the country’s capital, Kyiv, and other parts of the east and the northern Ukraine to the region where Mr. Martz is located, in the Carpathian Mountains, he said.
But the number of people seeking shelter has steadily increased, he said, noting that people arriving in his community are staying at local churches which have needed help with supplies.
“We’re just coming in to provide the resources — food, blankets, bedding, mattresses — so they can take care of those who arrive,” he said.
“It changes pretty much every hour, yesterday (Thursday) they were like 60 (people) and then it went up to 130. And now a few hours ago there were 200 people coming in . It keeps skyrocketing. »
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Friday that more than 50,000 Ukrainian refugees have left their country in less than 48 hours and many more are heading towards its borders.
Martz said most expats were looking for ways to get out of Ukraine or move within the country to safer places, while others chose to shelter at home.
A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada said about 800 Canadians currently live in Ukraine according to a Registration for Canadians Abroad service, but there could be more as registration is voluntary.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday his government has arranged safe passage for Canadian citizens and permanent residents fleeing Ukraine at the country’s land borders with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova.
“We are urgently issuing travel documents for affected Canadians, permanent residents and their immediate family members,” said Mr. Trudeau. We are launching a new dedicated hotline for anyone at home or abroad with urgent Ukraine-related immigration questions. »
Mykhailo Vynnytskyi, who was born and raised in Canada but has lived in Ukraine for 20 years, said he and his family sought refuge in a rural area south of Kiev.
The 51-year-old was at home in Kyiv with his wife and four teenage children when friends reached out to say the family should consider leaving the city on Thursday morning, shortly after the invasion began Russian troops. Mr Vynnytskyi said chaos gripped the town around 7.30am as residents began to flee.
“We heard jets passing overhead, but felt we were relatively safe […] We decided to wait for the traffic to calm down,” Vynnytskyi said in an interview Thursday.
The family left in the late afternoon and drove to their summer residence about 120 kilometers south of Kiev. The trip normally takes about an hour and a half, but with all the traffic it took them nearly four hours, Vynnytskyi said.
“Whoever had the opportunity to leave, there was a good chance that he would leave,” he said.
Mr Vynnytskyi said he was able to keep in touch with his mother and brother who live in Canada.
The author and professor said he was proud of what Ukraine’s armed forces have been able to do so far, but said the country needed more help.
For now, his family is taking things day by day.
“We have never had a war so close, so sometimes there is a certain apprehension and fear […] but at the end of the day, it’s not something that surprises us,” he said.
“We were preparing for something like this to happen. We weren’t exactly ready for this magnitude, but an invasion had been on our doorstep for about a month. »