Many non-Ukrainians flee Ukraine, their fates additionally unsure

All day lengthy, as trains and buses carry folks fleeing Ukraine to the protection of Polish border cities, they carry not simply Ukrainians fleeing a homeland underneath assault however giant numbers of residents of different nations who had made Ukraine their dwelling and whose lives have additionally been upended.

In Przemysl, a city close to the border which is the primary stopping level for a lot of refugees, there’s a visibly giant variety of Africans and folks from Middle Eastern nations.

Ahmed Ibrahim, a 23-year-old Egyptian, arrived carrying his cat in a provider late Friday, feeling surprised and sick after days of journey. He mentioned he had been learning drugs in Ukraine for 5 years and had just one 12 months left. He had no concept what his future holds, not even what his subsequent steps are. “What should I do?” he mentioned.

Earlier a Pakistani man acquired off a bus that had come from Lviv in western Poland in a grocery store car parking zone that’s the arrival level for buses. Shaking within the chilly he informed a volunteer that he needs to go to Germany however has no cash. The volunteer requested him if he wished to be taken to Krakow, a Polish metropolis that will carry him nearer to Germany, and he mentioned sure.

The UN refugee company mentioned Tuesday that some 660,000 refugees had already fled from Ukraine into neighbouring nations.

“This figure has been rising exponentially, hour after hour, literally, since Thursday,” company chief Filippo Grandi informed the United Nations Security Council. “I have worked in refugee crises for almost 40 years and I have rarely seen such an incredibly fast-rising exodus of people ” the biggest, absolutely, inside Europe, because the Balkan wars.”

Most go to Poland, a European Union nation that’s already dwelling to many Ukrainians who got here for work in recent times.

UNHCR figures on Monday had 281,000 folks arriving in Poland, greater than 84,500 in Hungary, about 36,400 in Moldova, over 32,500 in Romania and about 30,000 in Slovakia.

The UN believes as much as 4 million refugees might go away Ukraine if the battle deteriorates additional.

Polish UN Ambassador Krzysztof Szczerski mentioned folks of some 125 nationalities had been admitted from Ukraine on Monday morning alone. Most had been after all Ukraine. But different nationalities that made up not less than 100 folks every had been: Uzbek, Nigerian, Indian, Moroccan, Kazakh, Pakistani, Afghan, Polish, Belarussian, Iranian, Turkish, Algerian and Russian.

Some non-Ukrainians have complained that they’ve waited longer in line than Ukrainians and in some circumstances felt handled poorly.

Kaneka Agnihotri, an Indian scholar who has lived six years in Ukraine, walked six hours with out meals to the Shehyni border crossing. There, she mentioned, Ukrainian guards humiliated her and a bunch of different Indians, telling them to face up and sit down again and again and getting near them with guards.

She informed the AP that her group later moved to a unique border crossing the place they had been handled nicely. Once in Poland, the Poles did every part to assist.

There have been some stories that Africans particularly have been handled badly by Ukrainian guards.

Cihan Yildiray, a 26-year-old from Turkey who has been working in Kyiv, mentioned Ukrainians handed by means of the border checkpoint extra simply. He mentioned he noticed Black folks and Arabs being overwhelmed by Ukrainian guards.