The exodus, far from the fighting, continues in Ukraine. Consequence of the departure of tens of thousands of people in Ukraine: the congestion of certain roads, and even of certain cities in the west of the country, more spared by the war for the moment. This is the case of the largest city in this region: Lviv, a city of passage and a city of refuge, a nerve center for reaching Poland in particular. But the city’s reception capacity is beginning to reach its maximum. 200,000 people found refuge there in two weeks, that’s more than a quarter of the city’s total population in normal times.
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Every day, between ten and twenty trains enter Lviv station. On board are several hundred families from all over Ukraine. Women, children and the elderly, tried after a long journey, traumatized by the sound of bombs and explosions, who have gathered their whole lives in a few bags. In the hold of a bus leaving for Poland, Anna, with drawn features, puts down a simple piece of cabin baggage. Between two bombardments, his family fled Kharkiv in the northeast of the country, a city pounded by the Russians. “We want to go further, because here there is no more room, she explains, Everyone wants to settle here, there is more capacity for us.”
Lydia, on the other hand, wants to try her luck in Lviv. She arrived the day before with her 19-year-old son, mute since they left Zaporijia, a city in south-eastern Ukraine where the fire at the nuclear power plant has made them live through days of terrible anguish. “We heard a lot of shelling, explosions, she says. “We were very scared and we were mostly scared that we wouldn’t be able to go out at some point. So we made this decision to leave while it was possible to find calm.”
“I’m worried about what we’re going to do next: where to live, where to go?”
Lydia, refugeeat franceinfo
Of the 200,000 people who arrived in Lviv and who have been living there for a fortnight, half have decided to stay there and are wondering, like Lydia, about their future. ButDespite the will of ten thousand volunteers mobilized 24 hours a day, the city is overwhelmed. From the small municipal theater to the stadium on the outskirts of the city, Lviv’s 500 reception centers will soon be saturated. A situation to which Andriy Moskalenko, first deputy mayor of Lviv in charge of economic and social issues, warns.“The Mayor of Lviv appealed to international organizations, he adds, To call on them to provide us with additional resources to accommodate these people because the city is starting to reach the limit of its capacity. But in any case, I want to confirm that we have no other solution than to welcome these people and do everything possible for their well-being.”
Help is all the more urgent as the number of arrivals is not about to decrease and as evacuations from combat zones continue.