Africans Say Ukrainian Authorities Hindered Them From Fleeing
March 1, 2022, 1:25 p.m. ET40 minutes ago
40 minutes ago
Monika Pronczuk and Ruth Maclean
Foreigners who were living in Ukraine and are now refugees wait for friends to arrive after crossing into Poland in the town of Medyka on Monday.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Africans who had been living in Ukraine say they were stuck for days at crossings into neighboring European Union countries, huddling in the cold without food or shelter, held up by Ukrainian authorities who pushed them to the ends of long lines and even beat them, while letting Ukrainians through.
At least 660,000 people have fled Ukraine in the five days following the start of Russia's invasion, the United Nations refugee agency U.N.H.C.R. said. Most are Ukrainians, but some are students or migrant workers from Africa, Asia and other regions who are also desperate to escape.
Chineye Mbagwu, a 24-year-old doctor from Nigeria who lived in the western Ukrainian town of Ivano-Frankivsk, said she had spent more than two days stranded at the Poland-Ukraine border crossing in the town of Medyka, as the guards let Ukrainians cross but blocked foreigners.
"The Ukrainian border guards were not letting us through," she said in a phone interview, her voice trembling. "They were beating people up with sticks" and tearing off their jackets, she added. "They would slap them, beat them and push them to the end of the queue. It was awful."
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The African Union and President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria have condemned the treatment of Africans fleeing Ukraine following social media reports about border guards hindering them from leaving. Africans have also reported being barred from boarding trains headed to the border.
"Reports that Africans are singled out for unacceptable dissimilar treatment would be shockingly racist" and violate international law, the African Union said.
Ukraine's deputy interior minister, Anton Heraschenko, denied that his country was obstructing foreigners from leaving.
"Everything is simple," he said. "We are first to release women and children. Foreign men must wait for women and children to come forward. We will release all foreigners without hindrance," he added, in a written response to questions. "Same goes for blacks."
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Martin Mpofu, center, a student from Zimbabwe living in Ukraine, is helped to walk by his brother, Maneedi, right, and Hatim Redouani, 27, from Morocco, as they take the pedestrian border crossing into the small Polish town of Medyka.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Ms. Mbagwu, the Nigerian doctor, managed to reach Warsaw, but said she crossed the border only by struggling and pushing her way through.
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"They would say 'only women and children can pass through,'" she said. "But they were letting some Ukrainian men through. And whenever a Black lady would try to pass, they said: 'Our women first,'" Ms. Mbagwu added.
"There was no shelter from the cold. It snowed. There was no food, water, or a place to rest. I was literally hallucinating from sleep deprivation," she said.
She said her 21-year-old brother, a medical student, had been blocked at the border since Friday, but made it into Poland after four days of trying.
Not all foreigners reported ill treatment by Ukrainian authorities at the border crossings.
A Pakistani student and an Afghan national who crossed from Ukraine into Poland on Saturday said the only problem was very long lines. And a group of Vietnamese workers crossed easily into Moldova on Monday.
Mohammed Saadaoui, a 23-year-old Moroccan pharmacy student who traveled from the Ukrainian city of Odessa to Warsaw, said he did not have any problems.
"But we took a long time to find the good border crossing where there would not be too many people," he said. "There, we were treated the same way as the Ukrainians."
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The International Organization of Migration estimated that there are more than 470,000 foreign nationals in Ukraine, including a large number of overseas students and migrant workers. At least 6,000 of them have arrived in Moldova and Slovakia alone over the past five days, according to the I.O.M., and many more have crossed into Poland.
Many of the foreigners fleeing Ukraine said they were warmly welcomed in neighboring Poland, Moldova, Hungary and Romania. But Mr. Buhari, the Nigerian president, said there were reports of Polish officials refusing Nigerians entry.
Piotr Mueller, the spokesman for the Polish prime minister, denied this, saying, "Poland is letting in everyone coming from Ukraine regardless of their nationality."
Piotr Bystrianin, head of the Ocalenie Foundation, a Polish refugee charity, said that so far, "problems were on the Ukrainian side."
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Mohammed Amin, a pharmacy student in Dnipro, Ukraine, calling his family in Morocco from a makeshift reception center in Przemysl, Poland.Credit...Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times
More than 300,000 people have fled from Ukraine to Poland since the Russian invasion began, according to Poland's interior ministry. Makeshift accommodation is being set up across the country, and Poles are helping Ukrainians on a massive scale, transporting them through the border, hosting them in their homes, feeding and clothing them.
On Monday, Poland's ambassador to the United Nations, Krzysztof Szczerski, said his country welcomed all foreign students who were studying in Ukraine, and invited them to continue their studies in Poland.
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