Romania. Families displaced from Ukraine arrive in Romania.
\nUNICEF\/UN0602241\/C\u00e2tu
\n08 March 2022
\nISACCEA, Romania \u2013 \u201cI\u2019ve been crying for two days,\u201d says Olena, as she recounts how she fled her home in Ukraine to escape the escalating conflict. \u201cMy husband said I should leave to keep our boy safe.\u201d <\/p>\n
Olena and 8-year-old Yaroslav are just two of the thousands of people, mostly women and children, who have just stepped onto land in Isaccea, a port town in eastern Romania, after crossing the Danube River on a crowded ferry. But while everyone fleeing the conflict is relieved to have made it to safety, many of them are also left confronting enormous uncertainty over what happens next. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know where I will go now, if I\u2019ll ever see my husband again,\u201d Olena says. It\u2019s a tragic and desperate story, one echoed by every woman and child we meet. The sense of shock among these families is palpable as they describe how their lives have been turned upside down by the conflict. <\/p>\n
\u201cI told [my daughters] it\u2019s a vacation for several weeks,\u201d says Iryna, who arrives on a later boat. She says she has been trying desperately to manage the growing anxiety felt by her two daughters, 5-year-old Dasha and 8-year-old Masha, over what is happening. <\/p>\n
Romania.
\nUNICEF\/UN0602237\/C\u00e2tu
\nA volunteer offers warm bread to a child in Isaccea, Romania, who crossed the Danube with his mother on a ferry from Ukraine.
\nThe current scenes are in stark contrast to what someone standing at the dock would have seen just a couple of weeks ago. Then, the ferry was shuttling families taking holidays, businesspeople traveling for meetings, or people going to visit relatives or friends. Today, people have taken the journey in a desperate bid to save themselves and their families. <\/p>\n
\u201cI left for my children,\u201d Iryna says. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have gone, if it wasn\u2019t for my daughters.\u201d She shows us a colorful school bag that the family packed with books. Aside from that, the only things they could carry were food, medicines and a few items of clothing. <\/p>\n
Iryna has left family, her home and her business behind, but the creeping violence left her no choice. \u201cWe didn\u2019t sleep at all, I don\u2019t remember sleeping. The siren was going off and we were underground,\u201d Iryna says as she struggles to recount the horrors of recent days. <\/p>\n
Romania. Two children looks at cell phones.
\nUNICEF\/Fricker
\nMasha, left, and Dasha play games on mobile devices after arriving in Isaccea, Romania, with their mother.
\n\u201cIn Odessa, I had a store that sold beautiful clothes, but now I can\u2019t imagine what\u2019s happening.\u201d She says her husband, a sailor, was abroad when the conflict started. It\u2019s visibly difficult for Iryna to reflect on the life that she built for her family, a life she had no choice but to leave behind for the sake of her children\u2019s safety. <\/p>\n
Deceptive serenity
\nIt\u2019s a nine-hour drive north to the town of Sighetu Marmtiei, past the serene and snow-covered scenery of the Carpathian Mountains. Women and their children are arriving by the hundreds, if not thousands. Some are arriving in cars, but most are wheeling suitcases and carrying backpacks containing whatever they could quickly pack. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s no water to cross here, but the stories are similar. <\/p>\n
Maria and her 3-year-old daughter, Ksenyna, sit at a UNICEF-supported \u2018Blue Dot\u2019 space. The hub provides information and guidance for people arriving, family reunification services when needed, and a place for children to rest and play a little. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have one reason I\u2019m here,\u201d Maria says. \u201cIt\u2019s for my daughter, she was very afraid.\u201d Ksenya is focused on Krosh, the soft toy she brought with her. In the background, the voices and cries of children pierce the icy air. <\/p>\n
Maria fled home when the fighting came within hundreds of metres of them. \u201cIt was too dangerous to stay,\u201d she says. \u201cI had some work before, but I have no idea what I should do, now I have nothing.\u201d She is waiting for a friend\u2019s contact to pick her up and take them to Moldova. She is thankful that they are now safe. But the family\u2019s future is now deeply uncertain, one of the many endless tragedies of conflict. <\/p>\n
The common priority among every family arriving here is the children. Despite leaving husbands, partners and family behind, every mother here has made clear their determination to do whatever they can to ensure their children have a future. <\/p>\n
Peace would make that much easier and is needed desperately, now. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romania. Families displaced from Ukraine arrive in Romania. UNICEF\/UN0602241\/C\u00e2tu 08 March 2022 ISACCEA, Romania \u2013 \u201cI\u2019ve been crying for two days,\u201d says Olena, as she recounts how she fled her home in Ukraine to escape the escalating conflict. \u201cMy husband said I should leave to keep our boy safe.\u201d Olena and 8-year-old Yaroslav are just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/guidepostdev.azurewebsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/guidepostdev.azurewebsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/guidepostdev.azurewebsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guidepostdev.azurewebsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guidepostdev.azurewebsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/guidepostdev.azurewebsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":724,"href":"https:\/\/guidepostdev.azurewebsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions\/724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/guidepostdev.azurewebsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guidepostdev.azurewebsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guidepostdev.azurewebsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}