A week ago, mornings moved slowly in Medyka, a village in south-eastern Poland on the border with Ukraine.
Now, the atmosphere is markedly different at all hours.
It’s become a safe haven for Ukrainians escaping the unimaginable: an invasion ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, sparking Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II and what aid groups are calling a humanitarian catastrophe.
“I’m almost feeling like my country … is destroyed, you know? I hope it’s going to stop very soon,” says Ukrainian man Giorgi, who recently crossed the border.
Throughout the day, new arrivals steadily stream into Medyka by bus, car, and foot.
Most are utterly spent.
Jules, a Cameroon national completing a doctorate in literature in Mariupol, walked for three straight days in freezing conditions.
“I’m very tired. I need to just relax myself. I need to sleep. Because I did three days without sleep, my head now is [confused],” he says.
“I don’t know exactly where I want to go now.”
Many foreigners in Medyka say the reception has been overwhelmingly warm. But for others, the journey has been sinister.
experienced by non-Europeans fleeing Ukraine because of the Russian invasion, sparking concern from African countries and the African Union.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba addressed the reports in a tweet earlier this week, saying: "Africans seeking evacuation are our friends and need to have equal opportunities to return to their home countries safely".
“The Ukrainians take their favourite people [rather] than African people,” Jules says.
“They say to you, ‘you need to wait’ and ‘all the Ukrainians, go’.”
Jules walked for three straight days in freezing conditions to reach Poland Credit: SBS News
“It is happening with a lot of people, like with me,” he says.
“I am a Danish person. I have lived 32 years in Denmark, but Iraq is my origin. People see your face and see your different skin and nose and say ‘you’re not Ukrainian’.
“It’s bad dealing, a bad situation.”
Poland’s Nepalese diaspora are among the volunteers in Medyka, and they too have received complaints of mistreatment.
“Some [people] are losing passports, they don’t have money when they wake up, stuff like this,” says Sabin Gsmire of the Poland Nepalese Association.
'There is no place in Ukraine to run'
With predictions anywhere between four and seven million people will ultimately flee their homes in Ukraine, the exodus into other parts of Europe is poised to dwarf the 2015 migrant crisis, which caused heavy friction between leaders and threatened to fracture the EU.
On Thursday, the United Nations said more than one million people had fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began a week ago.
That number is rising rapidly, with Thursday’s count representing a big jump from the nearly 670,000 people tallied on Monday.
A breakdown of where Ukrainian refugees have been fleeing to Credit: SBS News/Karin Zhou-Zheng
For those who’ve escaped, the main focus is now just to seek some warmth.
A Polish soldier carries a baby of a Ukrainian refugee upon their arrival at the border crossing in Medyka Source: AP / Markus Schreiber/AP
Outside there’s a large group of volunteers providing clothing, food, cots and prams trying to give people some sort of leg up in this entirely uncertain situation.
The next move for many is unclear.
“I think one, two, three weeks and I can go, come back? I don’t know,” says Ukrainian woman Katya. “I don’t have a plan. Nothing.”
Natalia fled her home in Luhansk back in 2013 when Russia attacked the Donbas region and ultimately annexed Crimea.
She’s with her 12-year-old son Amir in Medyka and says history is cruelly repeating itself.
“It was too stressful, this trip,” she says.
“We ran to Odessa and now we’re running from Odessa because [fighting] started all over Ukraine. There is no place in Ukraine to run. So we went from Odessa to Lviv by car. My husband was driving for three days, we were sleeping three nights in the car.
“I just hope that it will not take that much people’s lives like how it took in Donbas and will be resolved in peaceful level.”
Mariana, a mother of two, says reality has only started to sink in.
“It is difficult to say what will happen. All people want people to believe that everything will be ok.”
Inside the shopping centre-turned shelter for refugees Credit: SBS News
'Safe spaces'
Stationed south of Medyka on the Romania-Ukraine border is World Vision Australia CEO Daniel Wordsworth, who says he’s seeing “streams” of refugees coming in.
“We’re providing emergency assistance to people who are crossing the border, that could be hygiene, clean water, those kinds of things,” he says.
“We also have a network of psychologists who speak Ukrainian and we're rolling those around because there's emergency food and water, but also at this time, you have people that are carrying a lot of stuff from what they've just experienced. We want to deal with both of those things.”
More than 67,000 people from Ukraine have entered Romania since the start of the Russian invasion, according to the country’s government.
Ukrainian refugees at the Siret border crossing between Ukraine and northern Romania Credit: IPA/Sipa USA
“A Kyiv orphanage was bombed and destroyed, and so there were immediately 40 children that were transferred into Bucharest and to us. We’re arranging to look after them,” he said.
Mr Wordsworth said World Vision expects “maybe another 200, up to 1,500 orphan children” will need homes outside of Ukraine over the next few weeks.
“We will find safe places for them.”
Additional reporting by Evan Young and Catalina Florez.
