From the platforms and streets adjacent to the Przemysel railway station, the flow of people is incessant during the 13 hours, as Efe was able to verify in the early hours of this Saturday, and the majority of the refugees from Ukraine are women, children and the elderly.
A device of about one hundred people, between national and municipal police, firefighters, members of the paramilitary militia and Ukrainian or Polish volunteers who are students of that language, receive the flood of people with thermoses of tea and baskets of sandwiches.
Upon arriving at station, an imposing large building dating from 1855, support staff escort people to a check-in table, in in case they wish to leave as soon as possible to a Polish city, and group them according to the destination they choose.
“We are volunteers”
Many people offer refugees trips g ratis to the main Polish cities in their own vehicles, as is the case of two Belarusian friends holding a sign that reads in Ukrainian: “To Krakow, room for three people”.
“We are volunteers, we don’t want anyone to pay us, we are here to help,” they explain to Efe.
The lights of the station remain on all night, even in the waiting room set up as dormitory for women and children where some 80 folding deckchairs with blankets are lined up.
As the hours go by, the number of people increases and it is decided to take advantage of the first floor of the building, which houses the offices, to install more loungers for mothers with babies and pregnant women.
There is an excellent organization
Throughout the early hours, social workers carry incessantly blankets, thermoses, juices and bowls of goulash and rolls to newcomers and the crowd. You fill every corner of the station and the small improvised kitchen is not enough.
Despite the atmosphere of emergency and stress, the organization is excellent, and when someone uses a loudspeaker to announce the departure of a car or calling for drivers, like the fourteen registered to travel to Krakow, there is a momentary silence and everyone pays attention.
Turns are established to take advantage of the available plugs, since practically everyone uses their mobile phone to be in contact with their loved ones or to share news.
According to the fire brigadier of Rzeszów (provincial capital), Daniel Dryniak, about 1 arrived at the Przemysl station on Thursday.500 people, but that number is visibly higher on Friday night.
Taisia, a woman from the city Ukrainian from Kharkov (East), tells Efe that her husband is a world police icipal and therefore could not accompany her to Poland; “They forced him to stay and fight, but he would have volunteered,” he says.
“We will always be together“
Groups of men form on the platforms who smoke and share information about the cities they come from (Kiev, Lviv, Kharkiv), despite the fact that at 2. at dawn the temperature is several degrees below zero.
Tatiana, a Ukrainian mother of three children, explains to Efe that she travels with her two brothers and, when They offer him to go to the bedroom to rest, he prefers to stay with his family.
“No matter what happens, from now on we will always be together“, he affirms.
Shortly before 3.00 at dawn, the mayor of Przemysl, Wojciech Bakun, arrives, telling Efe that “it is impossible to know how many people has arrived or is going to arrive“, but he hopes “that more cities and more government s show your love for these people”.
“In the last 72 hours no I have slept more than two or three“, he assures before continuing with the supervision of the assistive device.
With the light of dawn, the cries of babies are heard again in the improvised bedrooms and a group of volunteers run through the aisles with boxes full of stuffed animals.
UN: 500.000 people have been displaced
The Polish Government has been willing to welcome all the refugees who arrive in Poland to escape the war and assured that “the labor market” in this country “can absorb a million Ukrainians” if necessary.
Warsaw has established eight reception points along its border with Ukraine and accepts anyone who arrives with an identification document, passport or work permit issued in Ukraine and pa To expedite the procedures, it does not require vaccination certificates against covid-00.
More than a million Ukrainian nationals live in Poland, and unofficial estimates put that number at about two million.
The UN believes that the war in Ukraine has already forced the displacement of some 80.000 people and in the future could suffer the same fate between one and four million Ukrainians.
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