Ukraine refugees stream into Germany to rebuild shattered lives

Volunteers at an asylum centre in Reinickendorf man food stalls and help to find accommodation as droves of shell-shocked civilians flee bombardment

Ihtisham Ullah left Bacha Khan University in his native Pakistan in 2016, after four terrorists entered the premises and opened fire on students and staff, killing more than 20.

Last week, following Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, he was again forced to flee university because of violence, abandoning his language studies in the capital, Kyiv,, and going to Germany.

The 28-year-old spent the past six months learning Ukrainian, and intended to stay to study for higher degrees in sociology. His plans are now in tatters and he faces having to restart his studies in a new country.

“I came to complete my master’s and doctorate in Ukraine because it was peaceful … But it also came under attack,” he said.

“The situation was so horrible. We came from Kyiv at about 6am when they attacked. It was a terrible situation in Kyiv and Ukraine.”

On the way to Germany, “the Polish people helped us a lot” and a woman bought Mr Ullah a train ticket so that he could reach Berlin. Two days after arriving in the German capital, he joined the lengthy queue of refugees at an arrival centre for asylum seekers in the grounds of a former hospital in the suburb of Reinickendorf in the north-west of the city.

As well as the processing centre, a short walk away are portable buildings offering temporary accommodation and, close to them, the State Office for Refugee Affairs in Berlin provides hot food and drinks ― especially welcome when temperatures are only a few degrees above freezing.

Larissa Ivanova, 51, a construction project manager from Kyiv, came to register along with her mother, Tanya, 84, and daughter, Oxana, 31. They fled Ukraine by car.

“Every day was boom, boom,” said Mrs Ivanova, whose husband had to remain in Ukraine to look after his bed-ridden mother.

“We started to realise that products had run out – in shops around us it was very expensive, you couldn’t buy food.”

The “very traumatic” journey took four days. They came with their two Chihuahua dogs, Mickey and Bobby, who shivered in the cold as they were held by Mrs Ivanova and her daughter.

The family are among hundreds of thousands of people whose lives were turned upside down after Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ordered a military operation in the neighbouring country.

“Putin, we hate him. We want him dead,” Mrs Ivanova said. In some cases, Ukrainian refugees are being assisted in Reinickendorf by German people who let them stay in their own homes. Claudia, a company chief executive in Berlin who declined to give her full name, was hosting a Ukrainian boy, Rostik, 14, and his elderly grandmother, Galina, after they fled the city of Dnipro in south-east Ukraine.

Claudia said Galina in particular was traumatised after seeing large numbers of dead Russian soldiers during the journey out of the country. “They saw [them] on the way,” said Claudia.

“They’re very young and there were really many, many of them … It’s bad to talk about. They’re very young – they’re 18, 19.”

Claudia was particularly keen to look after the two fleeing Ukrainians because members of her own family had been forced to flee Poland for Germany in 1945.

“I never expected it to be like this,” she said.

“I grew up with the Cold War. After [former Soviet Union leader Mikhail] Gorbachev, everybody thought, ‘That’s it.’ We never expected it to be like this again.”

Among the other Germans volunteering to help arrivals was Alexander Hoffman, 44, a German army officer who is part of an online group that formed to arrange accommodation for refugees in the homes of local residents.

When refugees arrive at a stand the group has set up near the food stalls in Reinickendorf, he and his fellow volunteers call the locals who have offered accommodation. The hosts then arrive to collect the people they have been matched with.

“People see the kind of terror in Ukraine from the Russian army,” he said. “We think it’s important to help the people. The war is very terrible. The people are innocent. We must help.” He will keep volunteering, he said, “as long as help is needed”.

On Sunday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, estimated that 1.5 million people had fled Ukraine since Russia invaded, which he described as the fastest mass departure in Europe since the Second World War.

The expectation is that millions more will leave. Poland has taken about half of those who have left so far, and significant numbers of arrivals there have headed on to Germany, which has also been a destination for refugees fleeing through other countries after escaping the terror in Ukraine.

German media reported on Sunday that about 30,000 refugees had arrived in the country. As part of an emergency plan drawn up last week, the EU says Ukrainians will be allowed to live and work in its 27 member countries for up to three years.

In comments made to a German Sunday newspaper, Bild am Sonntag, Nancy Faeser, Germany’s interior minister, promised simplified asylum procedures for refugees fleeing the conflict and said non-Ukrainians who had permanent residence rights in Ukraine “bring this status with them” to Germany.

Ukraine’s large international student population includes many citizens of countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, a key reason why a significant number of refugees from the war are not Ukrainian passport holders.

READ ALSO: Chinese FM, Wang Yi urges US to unfreeze Afghan assets amid cold winter

One, Amer Lefdawe, 20, originally from Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, had to abandon his architecture studies in Kharkiv in north-east Ukraine.

“I lived so normal,” he said of his life in Ukraine.

“Everything was perfect. [But] after the war I couldn’t stay there. I cannot go home because of the war in Palestine.” Sabina Kovalevska, 46, her 14-year-old daughter, Palina, and her 70-year-old mother, Ilina, also fled Kharkiv.

They left after an attack last Tuesday on a nearby military facility blew the windows out of Mrs Kovalevska’s flat. They struggled to get on board packed trains and endured a 20-hour journey during which there was standing room only, before eventually reaching the Czech Republic and going on to Berlin.

“[It is] a real nightmare,” said Mrs Kovalevska, who worked as an administrator in a languages institute.

“In our country … I have work. Enough to live and be good. We want to go back, but we understand some is destroyed. We love our country. It’s very beautiful.”

But, amid the upheaval, on the way to Germany and once they arrived, she and her family have met with much kindness, with free transport and food. “I want to thank all the people,” she said.