War silenced violin for refugee as 1.7M have fled Ukraine

The violin was so beloved by Myroslava Sherbina that it was the one item she took as she fled Ukraine, along with the clothes she wore

ZAHONY, Hungary -- The violin was so beloved by Myroslava Sherbina it was the one item she took as she fled Ukraine, along with the clothes she wore. But the instrument has remained silent since the start of Russia's invasion of her country.

“I didn’t want to play so I could hear the sirens and we could go to the bomb shelter,” the 20-year-old Sherbina said.

She is among the more than 1.7 million people who have fled Ukraine in what the United Nations calls Europe’s fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. The number is up from 1.5 million on Sunday, the U.N. refugee agency said.

Sherbina spoke at a train station in Hungary, one of dozens of musicians with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine who are now refugees. They were on their way to Slovenia as part of a joint evacuation mission with a Slovenian orchestra.