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Racism rears its ugly head even in times of war

by Luqmaan Rawat

Indian Evacuees from Ukraine boarding a bus in Romania Photo twitter/ @MEAIndia

Ukraine – Racism rears its ugly head, even during times of war. Reports have emerged of Africans not being allowed onto trains to leave the Ukraine and experiencing discrimination at the borders.

A South African who crossed over into Romania documents the extremely harsh conditions she dealt with, along with her group and other Africans. She did not wish to be named.

“We have finally crossed over to the Romanian border, but it was very traumatic. After we left our city, we drove for hours till we got off and had to walk over 20kms to the border. We were cold, tired, and sore. We got to the border, and it was chaos. We stood and fought for over five hours. That is where all the traumatic and barbaric scenes occurred.”

There were two gates to cross over into Romania. One was for Ukrainians and the other gate for foreigners.

South Africans, Indians, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Arabs were amongst the people coming from cities all over Ukraine, who faced this situation. According to our source things went “from bad to worse” when a massive amount of people converged at the gates.

“Thousands of people and more were still on their way. There was so much pushing and fighting to grasp some air, being crushed against the gates and each other and the amount of racism faced just because of the colour of our skin was absolutely disturbing.”

People were seen collapsing and there was no order. People were desperate to get across but that only led to further chaos leading to Ukrainian soldiers shooting.

“Girls were asked to go through first, again, it was disturbing. After some girls went through, gunshots were heard as the Ukrainian soldiers and police were shooting into the air, on the ground near [people’s] feet and pointing their guns at people as the boys were going through. None of us were shot though. Our bags were being thrown over the other side of these gates. We had some injuries during the whole stampede, but we can still move.”

Emotions ran high as they got to the other side, escaping Ukraine yet the journey to safety and the return home continues.

“We joined the long lines and were accepted on the other side as refugees and got some blankets, food, and some shelter. We were all so emotional, hugged each other in tears and thanked God that we had made it to the other side at least. We got a bus, and we are on our way to another shelter and now we wait for the next plan to get home.”

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