At Romania hotel, ballroom welcomes refugees fleeing Ukraine
CTV
Get lifestyle news from CTV News. News on parenting, design, fashion, beauty, food, travel and more.
The 34-year-old Ukrainian marketing manager could hardly contain her emotions, and a simple "are you OK?" filled her eyes with tears she thought she no longer had.
The first refugees began arriving more than a week ago at the Mandachi Hotel and Spa in Suceava in Romania, where the owner decided to make the lavish, 850-square-metre ballroom available to them. Since then, more than 2,000 people and 100 pets have taken shelter here, with row upon row of numbered mattresses under an incongruous glittering disco ball.
They are part of the swiftest refugee exodus so far this century, in which more than 1.7 million people have fled Ukraine in just 10 days, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. Since the war started on Feb. 24, more than 227,000 Ukrainians have crossed into neighbouring Romania, according to local authorities.
Like Okhrimenko, some of the refugees at the Mandachi have fled cities on the front lines of the war.
