Refugees flee across EU borders as Ukrainian fighting flares-[REPORT]

Refugees fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine continued to pour across its western borders on Saturday (February 26), with around 100,000 reaching Poland in two days and some finding temporary sanctuary in sports halls and others in churches.

As Russian forces pounded Ukrainian cities including the capital Kyiv with artillery and cruise missiles, fearful families thronged European Union borders hoping to enter Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary.

Ukrainians already safely in the European Union waited anxiously at the borders for relatives to join them; many had walked for miles to try to reach safety.

At the Hungarian border town of Beregsurany, 58-year-old Nataliya Ableyeva brought a stranger's two children to safety after border guards prevented their fighting-age Ukrainian father from crossing.

Katharina Asselborn wiped away tears as she waited at the Polish border for her sister, aunt and her three children from their home in Odessa.

In Poland, which has the region's largest Ukrainian community of about 1 million people, a further 9,000 people had crossed the border since 7 a.m. on Saturday, Deputy Interior Minister Pawel Szefernaker told a news conference.

At Medyka in the south, some 85 km (50 miles) from Lviv in western Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainians waited for officials to process them as refugees. A group of women dragging suitcases with small children sitting on them shouted "Glory to Ukraine" as they passed.

The lines grew during the day at the crossing point. Refugees sifted through bags of clothes, blankets and toys and other supplies left by the side of the road. Locals left donations of food for anyone who needed it.

The Polish government has reserved 70,000 hospital beds for the war wounded and prepared a train to transport the injured from Ukraine. More train wagons been loaded with humanitarian supplies for the Lviv region.

 

 

 

 

REUTERS