No time for sentiment: War refugees fleeing Ukraine grab documents, pets, some photos
India Today
Ten days into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, 1.45 million people have fled the battered country, according to the U.N.-affiliated Organization for Migration in Geneva.
Life or death choices leave little time for sentiment. War refugees fleeing Russian ordnance in Ukraine grabbed only the essentials for their journeys to safety: key documents, a beloved pet, often not even a change of clothes.
Lena Nesterova remembers the hour her fate was sealed: Feb. 24, 5:34 a.m., the first explosions in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, that signaled the feared Russian invasion.
Driven by fear, she said, they took "only daughter, dog, all the documents, and left' Kyiv with only the clothes on their backs.
READ: Western sanctions are akin to declaration of war, says Vladimir Putin
"We left everything. We have no clothes, nothing," Nesterova said, adding. "And we don't know what will be after."
Her daughter, 18-year-old Margo, cradled the family toy Chihuahua, dressed lovingly in a purple puffer, in the safety of a refugee camp in the border city of Siret, Romania.
Ten days into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, 1.45 million people have fled the battered country, according to the U.N.-affiliated Organization for Migration in Geneva. The U.N. has predicted that the total number of refugees could swell to 4 million, to become the biggest such crisis this century.
