Officials in Polands two largest cities have warned that they can no longer cope with the waves of refugees fleeing Russias invasion of Ukraine. Dawid Krawczyk contributed to this report in Krakow. The two mothers left Mykolaiv four days ago as Russian forces began bombing the southern Ukrainian city, which sits on the mouth of the Black Sea. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Joanna Kakissis/NPR Now we still protest every day, but we are seeing less people joining.. Ive heard that Krakw has taken 100,000 people, said Jacek, a local volunteer helping at the station, and we are only a city of 800,000. He added that he had recently helped a mother who had arrived from Lviv with her children and had nowhere to sleep. In the span of one hectic 24 hours at the station, the lives of ordinary commuters and shoppers intersect with the harried path of war refugees, who roll their suitcases to an uncertain future. "We want to offer the students security, not just an education," Mikos says. KAKISSIS: She's from Odessa, the Ukrainian port city on the Black Sea. More than 2.5 million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries since the war started on Feb. 24, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Julia Wyka knows the train station better than most after working as a volunteer all over the terminal. Im trying to find accommodation for them, we are all networked and the network is a blessing, Jantos said. On the morning after Russia invaded Ukraine, Maria Hawranek did what hundreds of thousands of Poles would soon do: She signed up to host refugees at her home in Krakow. Some 30 families have passed through their doors so far, before going on to more permanent accommodation in the country or in Germany and Sweden. Refugee Border Crossings into Neighboring Countries Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, close to 6.6 million people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries. Omar Marques/Getty Images KRAKOW, Poland Galia Alacheva, an art-loving 17-year-old from the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, sips tea in a pop-up lunchroom tucked into a shuttered mall. At an elementary school named after the 20th-century Polish writer and adventurer Arkady Fiedler, a Ukrainian teacher's aide walks down a hall with a group of Ukrainian students. 392 people were given international protection - most of them being from Turkey, Belarus and Russia. As soon as the invasion started, the family immediately left their Lviv apartment to friends who were evacuating from Kyiv, and crossed the border to Poland. Anya's mother, Oksana, 43, asks as grandmother Halya Kyrylenko rests nearby. She's got a new friend here, 12-year-old Kristina Vitkovska, also from Kyiv. The UN says that, as of 4 July, more than 5.2 million refugees from Ukraine have been recorded across Europe. At least 12 million Ukrainians have been displaced by war. In Krakow, Poland, volunteers for a group called A Drop in the Ocean sort through clothing donations for Ukrainian refugees. Many people sleep at train stations. The Polish state is assisting municipalities financially, as they struggle to find long-term housing, jobs and places in schools for the newcomers. The Polish government this month passed a bill to set up a fund for war refugees, but cities like Krakow have called for more assistance. May 11, 2022 You could say my path to spending two weeks volunteering to help Ukrainian refugees in Krakow, Poland, began almost three years ago, when I went to Kyiv, the capital of. They do help in recommending accommodations, though, and they negotiated a cheaper rate for about $58 for a double per night, including breakfast, for volunteers at the nearby Hampton by Hilton. At the end of 2021, Ukraine was host to over 4,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, including people from Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Iraq.The UNHCR had also registered over 35,000 stateless persons in the country, and over 730,000 internally-displaced Ukrainians (owing to earlier years of . Many big aid organizations are present in Poland, particularly in the border region CARE, Save the Children, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees but theyre mostly relying on paid professionals and few volunteers. In the last several days, we have already received approx. Majchrowski said that Ukrainian-speaking officials and volunteers would be posted at Krakows main railway station around-the-clock to assist new refugees. Keith Byrne translates for the volunteers. In a Facebook post Friday, Krakow Mayor Jacek Majchrowski said that his government would begin sending Ukrainian refugees to accommodation outside the city, including in the surrounding province of Maopolska. She is based in Warsaw, Poland. Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile. He has opened his own home to refugees and, like Redmond, is now trying to ensure there is a long-term solution to the influx. Hundreds of thousands of Polish families have opened their homes to refugees from Ukraine, a sharp contrast to the countrys response to a different crisis last fall at the border with Belarus. UNHCR is expanding operations further east and south to hard-to-reach areas, delivering cash and in-kind assistance to Ukrainians, giving emergency shelter repair kits to those with damaged homes, carrying out housing repairs, and providing legal support and psychological counseling. Unfortunately, human nature dictates that it wont last and eventually people will want to get back to their regular lives. The city councils crisis response fund was 19 million zloty ($4.5m); it has already spent more than 16 million ($3.8m). Redmond, who has lived in Krakow for three years with his fiancee, was helping friends renovate a venue in the city into a bar where he would DJ. If we advertised that we were looking for volunteers, wed have hundreds of offers per day, and we dont have the capacity for them, he said. This article was published more than1 year ago. Were just here for a few days. As the invasion unfolded, however, it became evident that those days could turn into weeks, perhaps longer. @ada_petriczko. Krakow is slowly losing its ability to accommodate further . KRAKOW, Poland, March 20 (Reuters) - It's 11:30 a.m. at Krakow Main Station and Ruslana Shtuka is desperate for some fresh air. The numbers are growing, but according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as of the first week of May, at least 12 million Ukrainians had been displaced. But the higher the number of refugees, the lower the quality of reception, he said. The head of the press office of the city hall, Dariusz Nowak, told PAP that the stay of refugees is financed from the budget of the local social assistance department. I think that per analogy with the Syrian conflict although there are many differences even [25 percent] of Ukrainian citizens might leave the country. More than 2.5 million Ukrainian refugees have fled to Poland, and, according to the Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, there are some 300,000 in the capital city alone. And as each day passes, thousands more people arrive by train, seeking shelter in the main cities of Warsaw, Krakow and Wroclaw. Many Krakw schools offer Ukrainian language courses for teachers from Poland, and Polish language courses for teachers from Ukraine. She and her friend, Anya Pariy, are Ukrainian refugees who've spent the last hour sorting through cardboard boxes full of children's clothing in a dim tent just outside the train terminal of Poland's second city. An estimated 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees have flooded into Poland to escape Russian bombardment. Just 250km from the Ukrainian border, the city of Krakow has seen a huge influx of refugees - and is moving from a 'crisis to contingency' plans. Poland's family and social policy minister, Marlena Malag, announced earlier this month that 30,000 Ukrainians had already found jobs in Poland. Its not how wed classically imagine these types of crises, but you can feel that more and more people are arriving on a daily basis.. Put another way, this is the largest refugee crisis in Europe since WWII. Years of nationalist, anti-refugee policies have left Poland with a fragmented immigration system. Strzelecki and two other Poles staff the job center booth that's part of a help center inside a giant sports arena. Check out our 52 Places for a Changed World for 2022. Krakow has, in effect, turned into a large humanitarian organisation as locals mobilised en masse to support Ukrainians. The trip went relatively smoothly, except for a 10-hour wait at the border. We had 70,000 zloty [$16,600] in our budget, he said. Which issues should we discuss and which are best left unsaid?. On the first day as a volunteer, I picked up some useful phrases in Ukrainian, thanks to Google Translate and the fact that I was once an intermediate speaker of Czech, another Slavic language. Back in Krakow's sun-drenched square, Shtuka's daughter Alina tosses a chunk of ice, left from a Christmas skating rink, until it crumbles into small snowy shards. Transcript The population of Poland's second-largest city, Krakow, has grown 20% in the last month as 150,000 displaced Ukrainians have arrived seeking housing, jobs and schools. By early morning, tourists and commuters return to the station, where a large crowd of women and children gather to board a 10:13 a.m. train to Berlin. Krakow Main has become an artery for thousands as they make their way to accommodation around the country or to travel onwards to the rest of Europe. As Shtuka, 30, and Pariy, 25, push their shared black stroller around a historic square, they pass Italian tourists and shoppers with designer handbags in the sunshine, a world away from the war in Ukraine. This is especially helpful for kids adjusting to their new environment. Poland said it was respecting its international obligations while trying to stem the flow of people. "Since we left Ukraine, this is our home. One of the challenges was finding the right organization. [1/9] Ukrainian refugees wait inside a train for departure to Berlin at the main train station after fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Krakow, Poland, March 15, 2022. Deutsch With the Ukraine border only a few hours away, the Polish city of Krakw quickly became a major transit hub for Ukrainian refugees following Russia's invasion. About 150,000 Ukrainians have so far travelled to Krakow. . Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. JACEK MAJCHROWSKI: (Through interpreter) These children need to go to school. Your IP: At the central railway station, dazed Ukrainian families queue outside reception offices and rest rooms. "There was talk of opening up a special Ukrainian school, but we didn't want them to feel like we were putting them in a ghetto of sorts. But as hours passed, it became obvious that things were only getting worse.. Voluntourism has since continued to grow in popularity with organizations like Habitat for Humanity bringing awareness to it. In 2020, Poland received 2,803 asylum applications, which was a significant decrease compared to previous years. Mothers sleep next to their children on flower-patterned blankets laid out on the cold concrete floor. By 6 p.m., Wyka departs the shelter, leaving the next shift of scouts to take over. Remond is going through the process of setting up an official foundation through which he can use funds raised on GoFundMe in a more sustainable way. Since the Russian invasion, the 19th-century building has turned into a temporary shelter for refugees, where around a hundred mothers and children sleep side by side under golden chandeliers on fold-out beds. There are refugee reception centers and medical facilities set up along the 300-plus-mile border that Poland shares with Ukraine, but the smaller towns along the frontier are not equipped for the vast influx of humanity, so many refugees are being transported to bigger cities like Krakow and Warsaw, where centers and settlements have been set up to house, feed and clothe recent arrivals. In other countries its more difficult. The increase is slowing down, but its still increasing. Ukraine's neighbors With more than 1.6 million Ukrainians crossing into its territory as of Friday, according to UNHCR data, Poland has received by far the most refugees.