Tineke Ceelen saw with her own eyes the suffering in the border area near Poland. A stream of refugees crosses the border from Ukraine. “It is a chaotic situation. There are many volunteers and the police and fire brigade are also helping. But it is becoming more and more complicated now that the number of refugees is increasing.”
Ceelen is director of the Refugee Foundation and was born in Lith. She left for Poland immediately after the war broke out, where she visited various reception points. She has already seen a lot of trouble for her work, but this aroused emotions.
“You can imagine the sanitary facilities as hundreds of people use them. There are many crying overtired people with red eyes. Children asking when they can go back to daddy. I found it very difficult to see this on European soil” , she tells Omroep Brabant.
Brabant must also receive Ukrainian refugees, it has been agreed. In addition, many private individuals offer to take refugees into their homes.
“I find that heartwarming, it will certainly be necessary if the prediction is correct that 7 million people have fled the country. But know what you are getting into. It is not a crisis that will be over next week. Those refugees cannot return immediately, so they will have to wait longer. stay in your house for a while,” Ceelen warns.
Millions have already been raised at a national day of action for Ukraine, where people can deposit money into Giro 555. That money is desperately needed, says Ceelen. “Schools, apartment buildings. The country has been partly destroyed. There are still hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine with a shortage of food, drink and medication, let alone equipment to treat trauma.”