An aid worker for the UN Refugee Agency has spoken of being reduced to tears by the stories of Ukrainian people fleeing into Poland. But he has praised the ‘amazing’ Polish response, with ‘ordinary people doing extraordinary things’.
Chris Melzer has been deeply moved by the stories of some of those he has met on Poland’s border with Ukraine
Despite his role working in emergency relief around the world, the unfolding humanitarian crisis is the worst he has witnessed and is now regarded as the biggest in Europe since the Second World War. ‘People are sitting in cars in temperatures of minus 5 degrees in the day and minus 10 at night, which must be terrible. The waiting time is not up to 50 or 60 hours like we had a week ago, it’s now probably 10 or 12 hours.
‘The UNHCR has never seen this in Europe,’ he said. ‘It was founded in 1950 and the last time Europe witnessed such a refugee crisis was in 1945 with the Second World War.’The vast majority of people making it across the Ukrainian border and into Poland are women and children Polish soldier Richard Zdunczuk holds three-month-old Miron after Ukrainian refugees departed a train in Chelm, Poland
‘The third level is very ordinary people here in Poland doing extraordinary things. They are at the border with signs saying “tell me where you need to go”, that doesn’t mean the next train station, that means maybe driving across Poland. There are people giving away phone cards and people with signs saying they can host families.The UNHCR, which stands for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, had been planning for four million refugees as a worst case scenario, Mr Melzer said.
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