Aid organizations are standing in a traffic jam in front of the Przemysl train station. A platoon of officers tries to manage the crowds as well as possible. Inside the station it is organized chaos. Tables are full of food, water and other relief supplies. Volunteers hand out soup and bread to Ukrainian refugees. A woman who has just arrived sits against the wall and stares straight ahead in shock.
The normally quiet border town has been transformed into a shelter for thousands of refugees within a week. About half a million Ukrainians have already crossed here and elsewhere along the Polish border. Thanks to an army of volunteers from Poland and the rest of the world, things are still going well, but for how long?
Poland braces itself as fighting intensifies around cities like Kiev and Kharkiv, where they expect the number of refugees to grow rapidly. The UN estimates that eventually up to five million Ukrainians will be able to flee, with most of them going to Poland.
Reporter Arjen van der Horst about the reception in Poland. Watch the video with sound to hear Van der Horst’s explanation:
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