The Red Cross exceeds 2,000 Ukrainian refugees housed in Catalonia

“We are in the extreme emergency phase,” says Ramon Jané from the reception point for Ukrainian children and women at Sants station. He is the coordinator of the Red Cross on Barcelona and who is in front of the device where the main flow of information arrives ukrainian refugees on Catalonia.

In Sants, at the Prat airport, at the AVE station in Figueres and at the headquarters of the Red Cross in Catalonia, almost a thousand people have been attended to this Tuesday. One of them, little Alexei, two years old, who plays with a formula one car lying on the floor of the station. “He can’t take it anymore, we can’t take it anymore,” says his mother, exhausted after ten days of crossing. Those who have been here for days are anxiously wondering what the future holds for them. “And now what? What will happen to us?” asks Mariia Biletska, along with dozens of compatriots, who make an appointment to request asylumor refugeat the La Verneda National Police station.

The boy drags a red stroller, stretched out on the ground. His head is down, and he lets out a yawn. Alexei is two years old and he already knows what war, what are the shots. A resident of Kharkov, he spent a week locked in a basement with his mother. “We are not happy to arrive in Barcelona, ​​in our house we were happy. But at least bombs don’t fall and nobody shoots at you… we are still trembling with fright, especially when we hear a loud noise,” says the mother, Kate. She proves it when the little boy hears the ‘click’ of the camera. A subtle movement. “Sorry, we’re just exhausted,” continues Kate, 28. They spent three days in Lviv, the city to the west where they were not supposed to be attacked. Then he had to go through Premsyl, Warsaw, Berlin, Frankfurt, Avinyó and Montpeller, until they reached Barcelona. Kate is traveling with her cousin, Diana, who is a single mother to Alyna, a little girl the same age as Alexei. “My husband is missing, he’s at the front,” explains Kate. She shows a photo on the mobile of a man with a balaclava and a rifle.

staying in hotels

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Kate and Diana plan to get to Malaga, where an uncle who lives there is going to put them up. The train to Andalusia, the last one at last, leaves tomorrow at eight, so tonight they will spend it in a hotel set up by the Red Cross. Like them, a hundred people wait on the benches of the station waiting for a place to sleep. A day, about 300 people pass through the Sant’s station, of which 150 need accommodation from the NGO. In the conflict so far, there are more than 2,000 who are cared for in these accommodations. “We have an agreement with the Ministry of Migration and we will continue hosting through hotels,” says Jané, who insists that the entity’s main need is to find volunteer Ukrainian translators. “The emotional impact and the fatigue that they carry is enormous, and it is important to be able to relate to each other in their language”, continues Jané.

But Sants is not the only place where the Red Cross is caring for refugees. Also at the central headquarters of the entity, on Joan d’Àustria street in Barcelona, ​​families who have fled the war and do not know where to fall continue to arrive. “We are at a friend’s house, but in ten days they kick us out and we don’t know where we will have to go,” sighs Marina, together with her friend Irina i Marina. The war caught them on vacation in Barcelona, ​​but they can no longer return home. They leave the center hopeful. “They told us not to worry, that they would find a place for us,” says Marina. The street is packed with cars and vans with Ukrainian license plates. Families keep arriving with trunks and saddles packed with clothes and objects that are already souvenirs. There, the entity’s volunteers give them hot food, do a first documentary check, and play with the little ones. “It is a way that they do not forget that they are children,” they say from the entity.