As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters its third week and Russian attacks increasingly target the civilian population, more than 2.5 million people have been forced to flee the country.
Most of them, one and a half million people, have crossed into Poland since the war began on February 24.
Every day, some 10,000 people pass through the Lviv railway station, in the far west of Ukraine, to board trains for exile in Europe: the border with Poland is only 70 kilometers away.
In normal times, traveling from Lviv to the town of Przemysl — 60 miles away and across the Polish border — used to take about 2 hours and 22 minutes, according to the Business Insider post.
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Today, those who board these crowded trains can take up to 12 hours to reach their desired destination.
- Lviv’s large train station has become a well-organized, if overcrowded, hub for people displaced by attacks in cities like kyiv, Dnipro and Kharkiv, and for getting people out of the country.
- Metal barricades were placed to control the different flows of pedestrian traffic. Volunteers provide food, hot tea, and information. Areas for elderly and disabled people were set up on train platforms.
- Border guards stamp passports or birth certificates, because sometimes that’s all that someone looking to leave the country carries, in front of every train car heading abroad.
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Last Thursday, March 10, a train bound for Przemysl left Lviv loaded at twice its normal capacity, with more than 100 passengers in each car.
- Travelers, who have arrived there after traveling in many cases hundreds of kilometers, travel standing or sitting, as they can, occupying every inch of ground. The majority are women, children and the elderly, due to Ukrainian policy that prohibits men considered of military age (between 18 and 60) from leaving the country.
- The train, which was scheduled to leave at 12:12 in the afternoon, started its journey half an hour late.
- About 15 minutes after the start of the trip, the train stopped, sowing uneasiness among the passengers. Many of those who have jumped on the train do not know if they will find a home, or even a country, to return to when the nightmare of war is over.
- As the minutes go by, the murmur of the conversation is joined by the cries of the babies. Some passengers take advantage of the stop to take turns with others, so that everyone can get up and sit down.
- But on a packed train, where there’s no room to move easily, most just stoically stay where they are. When the train finally begins to move more than an hour after stopping, the carriage erupts in applause.
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A young mother with a 7-year-old daughter on her lap remembers that they had just spent 15 hours on a bus to reach Lviv from Kharkov, one of the cities hardest hit by Russia, the scene of continuous street fighting and aerial and artillery bombardment from the first day.
On the newly built multi-lane highway to the Polish capital Warsaw, many of the cars are smeared with mud and carry Ukrainian license plates.
Inside, the occupants lean on blankets and pillows as cars whisk them west, away from the bombs and the nightmare of war, but also away from their homes and loved ones. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
