During the first two days of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine, 50,000 people left the country, Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, announced on Friday February 25. These exodus movements continued on Saturday, particularly at the Polish and Romanian borders. Massive, they cause monster traffic jams between Ukraine and the European Union and make the progress of exiles very difficult.
>> War in Ukraine: follow the evolution of the situation in our live
Thus, the road to Poland is particularly chaotic. “I traveled a kilometer in five hours”, says Nicolas Teillard, a franceinfo journalist present in Ukraine and who is trying to reach Poland. Leaving Saturday morning from Lviv, the big city in western Ukraine, the last metropolis before Europe and Poland, he was able to drive about thirty kilometers before having to stop 20 kilometers from the border. At the end of the afternoon, it was still completely blocked by an unbroken column of cars.
On the border between #Ukraine and Romania, along the Danube, thousands of exiles are waiting to be able to enter the European Union. pic.twitter.com/jBPBcPIKZN
— Thibault Lefevre (@thibaultlefevre) February 26, 2022
“I have cars as far as the eye can see: in front of me, behind me, in several lines, in a totally disordered way”, he describes. This veritable heap of vehicles is heterogeneous: buses, trucks, cars – from the most modern to old Ladas reminiscent of the Soviet era. He sometimes attends grotesque situations because everyone tries to reach the goal, even if it means going to the side, practically in the ditch. Sometimes crossings with the few cars going to the center of Ukraine are impossible: “Earlier there were six cars abreast – on a dual carriageway – and a car coming from the other side couldn’t pass.” Many cars are actually conveying women, children and parents as close as possible to the Polish border, before then reversing.
But not all cars make the trip to the end. Some give up and end up dropping off their occupants. “We see more and more people on foot, on the low side, with suitcases, backpacks or strollers”, describes Nicolas Teillard. Many also have things to spend the night in the cold: blankets, food…
Another border, another congestion: in Romania, the border posts are saturated with – again – a twenty-kilometre wait before the Siret border post, in the north of the country. As at the border with Poland, many Ukrainians choose to cross on foot and are then helped by Romanians who, out of solidarity, then take them to Suceava station, 50 kilometers from the border.
Arrived there, blue passport in hand, the Ukrainians line up to take a train ticket for Bucharest. Travel time: six and a half hours. “I feel safe since I crossed the border but I don’t feel well. It’s a shared feeling because I left my family there”, says Vlad, 22. On the platform, he struggles to read his wagon number in Latin alphabet. “They live near Odessa. Where they are, there hasn’t been any fighting, but they are far from the city. It’s in the big cities that there are problems, not yet in Area.”
This morning at the station #SuceavaUkrainians dropped off by car by Romanians from the border (46 km) flee by train to Bucharest and its international airport #Ukraine #Romania pic.twitter.com/9pAdUKR04R
— Mathilde Dehimi (@mathildedehimi) February 26, 2022
Vlad is one of the last men to cross the border before the general mobilization order on Thursday. He says wish “peace and calm for Ukraine”. He rushes into the wagon to try to resume his studies in Bucharest. Few of the Ukrainian refugees remain here. “For the moment, we only have three people who stay for two or three weeks. The majority go far away: to Italy, Spain, Turkey… Anywhere but not here”, notes Ainka, a student who came to help them. Faced with this influx, the authorities fear a rapid lack of transport and accommodation for Ukrainians in exodus.