Fate has forced Moldexpo, the fairgrounds of Moldova, to live several lives in recent months.
Just like the inhabitants of the city where it is located, Chisinau, the capital of the third poorest country in Europe, after Ukraine and Armenia.
The fairground was transformed with the pandemic from a place of leisure and business into a health center to welcome patients with covid-19 and is now the improvised accommodation for half a thousand refugees from Ukraine.
The Chisinau authorities have made various spaces like this available to local organizations to welcome the more than 100,000 refugees who have been crossing through here since February 24, when Russia's invasion of Ukraine began.
A number that increases by thousands every day.
Through the nine functional entry points between the two countries, women with children arrive in vehicles and on foot, loaded with their suitcases and accompanied by their pets.
A sad parade.
photo gallery
The border that turns them into refugees
The crisis of displaced people has been answered with an avalanche of solidarity, the neighbors donate food and clothes, what they can or have;
Various companies have supplied the showers, beds and even tickets with 200 leus (10 euros) to spend in shops in the city, where most of the displaced people who remain in the country end up and do not continue on their way to the European Union.
But the volunteers on whom the provision of this help and shelter falls confess overwhelmed.
Artem Matukhno, 34, arrived in Moldova from Odessa just before President Zelensky declared martial law in Ukraine, which prohibits men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country. “I was working in social media marketing.
A week ago, I took my family, my wife, my brother and my mother, and I came with some close friends”, he recounts.
Today he is one of 200 volunteers, mostly young people from Moldovan NGOs, who take turns at Moldexpo helping those who have no choice but to stay in the makeshift shelter.
One of the first international organizations to land in the area, in addition to the UN refugee agency (Acnur) or the Red Cross, with a previous presence, has been Action Against Hunger Spain, specialized in humanitarian emergencies.
His team left Madrid on March 2.
Little was known at the time of what was happening in this corner of the Ukrainian border and before soliciting funds from donors and sending any aid, they needed to check on the ground what the needs of the refugees and those who serve them were.
They launched the emergency deployment.
"It will be difficult for this type of support, with volunteers and without sufficient resources, to be sustained and maintained throughout the duration of the crisis," says Noelia Monge Vega, the head of this group,
“We need knowledge and training.
We don't know how to do this,” confesses Russu Roman, a 30-year-old freelance journalist, born in Ukraine but living in Moldova.
He is one of the coordinators of the space that several organizations of Ukrainians in the diaspora have baptized as the Refugee Transit Center in Chisinau: a ceded commercial premises that, with some mattresses on pallets, is today the temporary shelter of 25 refugees and has arrived to accommodate 400.
"We are not experts in emergencies," Narcisa Alexe, from the Novapolis organization, comments on the same line from Constanza (Romania), by video call.
Her account confirms how desperate the situation is on every meter of the border.
Her face shows weariness.
The entity to which she belongs defends the rights of refugees, but is not a specialist in crisis care.
Hardly anyone is here.
However, she comes and goes non-stop from Constanta to the border town of Tulcea, one of the entry points to Romania, “from the beginning”.
It confirms that the Red Cross and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are present and very active.
But assistance to the growing number of people is still disorganized and refugees often do not know where to go to register and apply for services.
“Telephone companies are giving out SIM cards, but there is no specific location identified where to pick them up.
It's all mixed up,” he explains as he apologizes for his incoherent English after a night too short to rest.
"Volunteers are insufficient," she laments.
“And people need to buy food, gasoline.
There is a lack of products for young children.”
In Palanca, the entry point to southern Moldova, a tent (also run by volunteers) welcomes them with sandwiches and hot tea just 100 meters from the border.
It is crowded because it is the only roof that protects from the paralyzing cold.
Outside the tarpaulins, hundreds of people, wrapped in blankets, chapped lips and swollen eyes from crying, wait for a transport.
Most go to Chisinau, about two hours away by car, either to stay with friends or continue on to Romania or other destinations in Europe.
They don't know when or how.
The announcements of shipment of supplies and personnel multiply before the magnitude of the exodus, but here still nobody has seen them
During the afternoon there is a peak of arrivals, says Anatol Malancea, a Moldovan businessman, who has turned to the reception.
Those who arrive at night or need to sleep after making the last leg of Ukraine on foot are herded to government-run tents about a five-minute bus ride away on a muddy expanse with barely a few bare trees on the horizon.
Some logos on the vehicles reveal the presence of Acnur and other NGOs.
Some provide transportation, others study the situation to assess how to help adequately, such as Action Against Hunger.
The announcements of shipment of supplies and personnel multiply before the magnitude of the exodus, but here still nobody has seen them.
The United Nations, for its part, has launched an aid appeal of 1,700 million dollars (about 1,500 million euros) for a first humanitarian response.
Not even two weeks have passed since the conflict began and the displacement crisis is intensifying by the minute.
As of March 5, more than 1.3 million people had left Ukraine.
The projection is that this figure will quadruple by July.
This is how NGOs mobilize
"This is just the beginning," Monge reflected as he consulted the figures, answered emails, messages on his mobile and chatted with his partner Janire Zulaika, at the Madrid airport before boarding for Romania on March 2.
They will be joined later by Catherine Darriulet, the water, sanitation and hygiene expert, and Víctor Saiapin, to organize the logistics of the visit.
Their mission: first assessment of the situation and needs of refugees on the border between Moldova and Ukraine.
Entry from Ukraine to Moldova through the Palanca border point.
The arrival of refugees is incessant.Gonzalo Hohr (ACH)
The information they obtain will serve to activate the emergency agreement with the Spanish Agency for Development Cooperation or request resources from the European Union.
Which in practice means that donors disburse them funds to cover the unmet needs of refugees, in their case, on the borders of Romania and Moldova with Ukraine.
Monge will not wait for him to return to Madrid to write the petition, as he had planned.
"It is urgent to start the process as soon as possible," she says.
In a week, they should be implementing whatever solutions they now decide on.
“The children are given food and cookies.
And there are diapers,” explains Irina K., 38, staying with her one-year-old baby and her husband (originally from Azerbaijan) at Moldexpo.
"But there is not enough food for adults," she emphasizes with moist eyes.
In the absence of a kitchen, the only hot dishes are those that some restaurants send out;
the rest is consumed directly from cans donated by businesses and individuals.
There are also not enough toilets in the place - 12 for 500 - or drinking water from the tap.
“They give them bottles.
Now they have, but they will end, ”explains Darriulet concerned as she walks through the center notebook in hand.
The children run around.
The hubbub is mixed with looks lost in dark thoughts.
Privacy is also not guaranteed: the doors of the cubicles are blankets and multicolored fabrics, men and women from different families share the few showers.
To the exhaustion of the flight is added the precariousness and uncertainty.
The situation worsens drastically from one day to the next.
The resurgence of the attacks in Odessa and the siege of Kiev predict an intensification of the outflow of Ukrainians towards neighboring countries.
The president of the Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu, officially requested the country's entry into the European Union on Thursday, following the example of Ukraine and Georgia, two other states with Russian troops stationed on their territory, and she did so, according to EFE. , after the French Executive warned that this country of 2.6 million inhabitants could be, along with Georgia, the next Russian military target.
After meeting with the Romanian and Polish governments, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, decided yesterday to visit precisely the southern border in Moldova.
“Today in Palanca I saw thousands and thousands of people crossing the border from Ukraine to Moldova.
Thousands of stories of separation, anguish and loss.
A difficult day, but a lot of respect for the Moldovan officials and citizens who help the refugees,” he wrote on his Twitter account.
Today at Palanca I saw thousands and thousands of people streaming across Ukraine's border crossing with Moldova.
Thousands of stories of separation, anguish, and loss.
A difficult day, but much respect for the many dedicated Moldovan officials and people helping the refugees.
pic.twitter.com/84dPcFcCPG
– Filippo Grandi (@FilippoGrandi) March 4, 2022
"It is essential that we coordinate with other actors so that we are not all in the same towns helping the same people," Monge underlines.
“And if there are several of us in one place, that we carry out at least complementary interventions.”
The emergency latrines -a hole in the mud delimited with chipboard panels- in the Palanca camp are not appropriate, good nutrition is not guaranteed in general and neither is the sustainability of the aid if it depends on small entities with limited and scarce resources. management knowledge.
Emergency psychological support is now urgent.
And new demands will emerge.
Now there are many who ask for clean and dry clothes, explains Roman, but when the cold passes "they will ask for other types of clothing more appropriate for another climate," he predicts.
Many will continue on to Europe, most will seek support from family and friends in the diaspora.
But there is no indication, at the moment, that an imminent return is possible as some dream.
"We have to think about what our next steps are," plans the volunteer from the Transit Center in Chisinau.
First of all, try to hire people who are now combining their professions with solidarity.
“A process in which Acción Contra el Hambre could help them”, notes Monge after meeting with the team.
Despite the shortcomings and circumstances, Sagrat, a 51-year-old Azerbaijani who had been in Kiev for three decades, gives thanks for the treatment his family is receiving at Moldexpo.
“Ukraine was my second home.
Now the third is Moldova.”
The marriage has spent five days in a cubicle with his two children, shares a shower with hundreds of strangers and does not always eat hot.
But the help they have been given is what gives them hope for humanity and the future.
For now, they just have to wait for them to be relocated to another destination.
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