Russia-Ukraine War: On Tuesday night alone, 1,300 refugees arrived in the German capital by train.
Berlin:
The announcement over the loudspeaker was almost drowned out by the tumult of passengers spilling out of the train from Warsaw, but it was the message many of them had longed to hear: “Dear passengers from Ukraine, Welcome to Berlin!”
Just over a week after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine, the flow of war refugees to Germany has grown steadily.
Katja Kipping, senator for social affairs in Berlin, said: “The situation has changed dramatically.
On Tuesday night alone, 1,300 refugees arrived in the German capital by train.
Mayor Franziska Giffey expects Berlin, less than 100 kilometers from Ukraine’s western neighbor Poland, to host at least 20,000 Ukrainians in the coming weeks and that his city is urgently preparing accommodation. emergency.
The German Interior Ministry has officially registered more than 5,000 Ukrainian refugees to date. But since there are no border checks between Poland and Germany, the real number is likely higher.
At Berlin’s central train station, Ukrainian women and children make up the majority of those from Poland, leaving behind husbands, fathers and sons to join the fight against the advancing army. Russia.
Among the new arrivals was Nathalia Lypka, a German professor from the city of Zaporizhzhia, eastern Ukraine, who had fled with her 21-year-old daughter.
‘Fear’
“We met in Lviv,” she told AFP, sitting on a wooden bench set up by volunteers in a corner of the vast train station, one of Europe’s busiest.
“My daughter was in Kyiv, it was terrible, she was scared and had to take shelter in the metro station” to protect herself from the shelling, she said.
“My husband and son stayed… My husband served in the military and he had to return to duty,” she added.
Lypka and her daughter plan to board a train to Stuttgart next, where friends are waiting to take them in.
“We thank Europe for its support,” she added.
Free tickets
Although the flow of Ukrainians pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis who fled their conflict-torn countries for Germany in 2015-2016, the scene of refugees being welcomed by volunteer committees welcome is remarkably similar.
At the Berlin station, volunteers wearing high-visibility yellow vests hand out bananas, bread and water bottles to new arrivals.
Some carry stickers on their chests that say they speak Russian or Ukrainian. Others help bewildered newcomers to plan their next trips, taking advantage of rail operator Deutsche Bahn’s offer of free travel for Ukrainians.
Nearby, volunteers folding blankets and clothes paused to accept a donation of coronavirus masks from a German woman.
Elsewhere in the station, the Red Cross is present to administer first aid to refugees, or arrange hospital transport for those in need of more serious care.
“Many people come here exhausted, they have headaches” and other aches and pains, says Nicolas Schoenemann, who oversees a team of five Red Cross employees.
Among those from Ukraine there are also a significant number of people of African descent.
According to Liubov Abravitova, Ukraine’s ambassador to South Africa, before the Russian invasion, Ukraine was home to about 16,000 African students.
Cameroonian Aurelien Kaze is studying economics in the second Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which has come under Russian shelling.
“We heard shelling, there was panic everywhere,” he said as he waited to board the train to Brussels, where he has relatives.
The 25-year-old considers himself lucky to have a smooth crossing of the border between Ukraine and Poland, following reports of racist behavior by border forces towards Africans.
Kaze said it seemed “a little easier” to him than some others. “They checked my papers,” he recalls, and was waved.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was automatically generated from the feed provided.)
