Volodymyr Vavrykovych fled Ukraine by car with his wife and three children after Russia invaded his country. They are now seeking refuge in Krakow, Poland.
VOLODYMYR VAVRYKOVYCH
Refugee in Poland
'On some borders, on some points where you can cross the border between Ukraine and other countries, the line is like 20 or 30 kilometers long, sometimes maybe longer, so people are staying for more than 24 hours, one of my friends reported that he was staying for nearly 50 hours on the border, and some other friends also something like that.'
Despite the dire situation, refugees like Volodymyr are working to help other Ukrainians from a distance.
VOLODYMYR VAVRYKOVYCH
Refugee in Poland
“So part of the day I try to work and also communicate with my colleagues on the company to find ways we help our employees there in Ukraine, we are also helping people to move to Poland as well or to move from regions where the war is going more active to more western regions where its considered to be relatively safer. So yes, we are trying to live as normal life as is possible in this conditions.'
While he is safe in Poland, he says he would like to return to his country as soon as possible.
VOLODYMYR VAVRYKOVYCH
Refugee in Poland
'Of course we are missing home and we want to go back to Ukraine and to go back to our home. As soon as the situation is more or less stable and what I can say is that at the beginning my brother came with us as well but after few days he decided to back, so he just took a bus and went back to Ukraine because he wanted to be served, he wanted to help as long as he can help there.'
Volodymyr's story is similar to the hundreds of thousands of people who have had to flee their country. The last refugee crisis of this scale in Europe was caused by the Bosnian War in the 90s.
SO
TR: JM
