This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org. License [2]: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/Int'l. ------------------------ Ukraine refugee crisis: How Poland is adapting to care for a million people By: [] Date: 2022-03 I stand in the middle of a huge hall in Korczowa, close to the border with Ukraine at Poland’s A4 highway. It used to be a duty-free shopping zone selling building materials that was later turned into storage space; a shed made of corrugated sheet metal, one of many at the borderland. When Russia attacked Ukraine, and masses of refugees fled west, the hall filled with donations, camp beds and human suffering. This is one of the provisional reception centres where refugees can find respite. Between a medical support booth and a nappy-changing station sits Anastasiia Khilko – only yesterday, a singer and teacher at the Ukrainian National Music Academy in Kyiv. The thirty-something mother holds her head in her hands. Two boys move around by her side, ten-year-old Sasha and seven-year-old Vitia. When we talk, the boys start suggesting subjects themselves. “Mum, show her how a tank light was shining into our window the whole night!” “Mum, tell her how they bombed a kindergarten!” Get our free Daily Email Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up now “Mum, there was this video of girls from Chernihiv throwing Molotov cocktails at the tanks!” Anastasiia – Nastia, for short – explains the ‘three walls rule’ to me: the safest place to hide is where three walls divide us from the outside world. So when the air-raid sirens started (the one in Nastia’s neighbourhood was broken, but she was following updates from Kyiv city council on Telegram) she lay down with the boys in the corridor of her flat in the city’s Troyeshchina neighbourhood. “When bombs were falling, Sasha fought them with a joystick. Then we told our mum not to cry,” says Vitia. Fleeing Kyiv Nastia and her children managed to board an evacuation bus leaving from the other side of the Dnipro, the river that runs through Kyiv. “It wasn’t easy, as it’s hard to cross the river, and the city lacks petrol,” she says. “When we were leaving the city, the sirens were on.” Nastia shows me pictures from Bucha – a town near Kyiv that has become the site of horrific destruction by Russian forces. Nastia’s friend lives there and recently sent her a message. “We are in the cellar because rockets are falling on us,” it read. “They said that food will not arrive at least until tomorrow. I’m lying down on a mat, and my mum is sitting at a bench and resting or something like that. If a missile hits our building we will not get out of here because we locked ourselves in the cellar and the lock is broken. Everything is shaking: the building and our bodies.” [END] [1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/exclusive-ukraine-refugee-crisis-poland-russia/ [2] url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/ OpenDemocracy via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/