First the wait, then the commotion, the farewells: thousands of people gathered today at the Dnipro train station in central Ukraine, trying to board a train to the west to escape the Russian bombing.
It is the first time so many people are trying to leave the city where, according to official TV channels, the situation remains under control.
Residents, however, say they will not wait for Dnipro to become “the next Kharkiv”, the city in northeastern Ukraine near the border with Russia that has been bombed since the beginning of the war.
In addition to Dnipro residents, there are many from Kharkiv and Zaporizhia hoping to board a train. As vacancies fill up quickly, some are waiting for days.
Men between the ages of 18 and 60 are not allowed to leave, but many go to say goodbye to their mothers, wives and children. Families who do not know when and where they will be reunited share a hot tea in the cold, while thick snowflakes fall.
“We are sending our women and children to Lviv, maybe even farther and we are staying here. We are trying to stay positive, but the situation is horrible,” said Andrei Kirichenko, a 40-year-old builder from Kharkiv.
The staff of the station states that they have no information about the arrival of the trains, nor about their destination. Most of the passengers are hoping to get to Lviv.
No one knows what is going on or where the trains are going, said one volunteer. “Maybe in Lviv, maybe in Uzhhorod, on the border with Slovakia. We only know that they are going west.”
“I do not care where my family is, as long as it is far from Kharkiv,” said Nikola Kirichenkoi, a 44-year-old driver who plans to return to his hometown when his family boarded the train. His elderly parents could not move and stayed in Kharkiv. “There are rockets everywhere that have not exploded. We stayed in the basement for almost a week and I thought it would stop, but the attacks continued,” he added.
Due to the large number of passengers, the municipality announced that it will erect a special fence to protect the crowd. Mayor Boris Filatov called on the crowded men to say goodbye to their families not to approach the docks.
More than a million people have already left Ukraine and as many are internally displaced.
SOURCE: AMPE
Source: Capital
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