As men fight for Ukraine women and children flee alone

By Justin Spike and Vanessa Gera | Associated PressTISZABECS, Hungary (AP) — Of the hundreds of refugees gathered on the grounds of a small village school in eastern Hungary, almost all are women and children who left their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons behind to fight in Ukraine’s resistance to the deadly Russian invasion.“I have brothers, they are fighting now, ” said Olga Skliarova, a 34-year-old resident of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. “Men are not allowed to cross the border, so they helped us to get to the border and went back to Kyiv to fight. ”The exodus of refugees from the war in Ukraine is rapidly growing in the eastern countries of the European Union, with more than 675, 000 people fleeing to neighboring countries since the Russian invasion began — a number that will only grow, according to the U. N. refugee agency. Shabia Mantoo, a spokeswoman for the U. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in Geneva Tuesday that “at this rate, the situation looks set to become Europe’s largest refugee crisis this century. ”An order from Ukraine’s government prohibiting men aged 18- to 60-years-old from leaving the country — so as to keep them available for military conscription — means that many women and children must seek safety on their own. Irina Yarimchuk, an accountant from the western Ukrainian town of Kalush, traveled the five hours to the Hungarian village of Tiszabecs early Tuesday with her 14-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter. Through tears, she said her brother had joined the Ukrainian army, and she was “very worried about his life. ”“I love you so much. Keep yourself strong. We will win, and we will see you soon, I hope, ” she said in an emotional message to her brother, who is stationed near Ukraine’s border with Belarus. After a missile hit the nearby Ivano-Frankivsk airport as the Russian invasion began Thursday, Yarimchuk — who is planning to stay with relatives in Prague — spent her days and nights shuttling her family from their home to a bomb shelter as air raid sirens blared every few hours.“From that day … we stay outside our home every evening, ” she said of the five panicked nights before she left. “I was afraid for my children. ”Skliarova, who worked in tourism in Kyiv before war laid siege to the city, recounted keeping a full backpack of clothes and emergency supplies that she brought with her each time she took shelter in her apartment building basement.“It’s an evil, evil feeling, ” she said. “Scary, stress, shock. Every hour in the night, we got up to run into the basement. We slept dressed to get up and run. ”In Poland, too, it was largely Ukrainian women arriving with their children as Putin’s forces intensified their attacks on civilian targets in a campaign that is becoming deadlier for children. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the European Parliament on Tuesday that Russian forces had killed 16 children the day before as he appealed to EU leaders to accept Ukraine in the bloc.


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Article Link: https://www.dailynews.com/2022/03/01/as-men-fight-for-ukraine-women-and-children-flee-alone/


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