A child who falls asleep while standing up. Yes, standing up! Two 80-year-old grandfathers crossing on bicycles - yes, on bicycles - with only one handheld bag; nothing else. A woman crosses the border from Ukraine to Romania, weeping with grief and mixed emotions, while carrying her cat in her arms. A mother and her two children, alone, very hungry, desperately eating the hot soup handed to them by volunteers. An elderly couple, apparently peasants, cross the bridge that separates the two countries on foot. Both of them, holding hands, together, leaving their homeland, limping because they can no longer walk. But they are together, looking for a new direction.
Tired faces. Very tired. Too tired. Exhausted, haggard, dirty. And, in 90% of the cases, they don't have a sure plan, they don't know where they will go, where they will sleep the next nights; they don't know how they will go on with their lives. Yes, these faces show "relief" for having escaped the war, but behind every step, every metre, and every kilometre travelled, there is the sadness of having lost everything, a longing for their abandoned homeland, dark memories of the bombers, the traumas, and the unclear horizon. All is uncertainty.
That is what I saw every minute of this day, standing, watching, at the Romanian-Ukrainian border crossing. To be there, in front of the gate that opens for every Ukrainian leaving the country, and to see those exhausted faces, to hear people carrying mixed feelings of "relief" but also of pain for leaving the homeland, is something I will never forget. So many questions. Many fears. Mistrust. Fear of the future. Trauma, terror, emotional needs. These are the secondary and harmful effects of a war that has no logic (if there is such a thing as a logical war...). Because war not only destroys houses, buildings, hospitals, and streets, war destroys dreams.
War destroys dreams, desires, plans, a stable and happy childhood, all the work and sacrifice of many years of life.
After 7 hours on the border and even a few minutes on the Ukrainian side, one cannot come to any other conclusion than that it is all very sad and meaningless.
"I'm 82 years old and they destroyed my whole house," says this grandmother from Irpin, a city heavily attacked by Russian militias. "But before I die, I will return to Irpin to rebuild my house," she adds with enthusiasm and a faint smile.
As the day falls, I am told something that strikes me: night is approaching and many neighbours are coming, Hotels, guesthouses, and churches offer their facilities so that refugees can bathe, eat, and sleep comfortably until their convoy arrives to take them to their final destination.
But remarkably, many do not accept or refuse such offers. Many arrive in fear. Many do not trust strangers. "We have lost the ability to trust someone unfamiliar," says a young woman from Kyiv. "On our way here, we met civilians who wanted to shoot at us. We saw people following us. We didn't know if someone was chasing us or not. We lost the ability to believe, to trust."
War destroys values, principles, the joy that can come out of a people so kind and at the same time, it also brings suffering.
It is 11 o'clock at night. It's time to go to rest, even though I still have the image of that 8-year-old boy nodding off, falling asleep standing up. But it's time to rest. As I lie down in a comfortable, cosy bed in a well-heated room, I try to put myself in the place of those who, today, are trudging kilometres to reach the border. And tomorrow I will see them, and it will surely be the same story, the same portrait.
However, I want to highlight something positive in the midst of so many dark clouds: the generosity and willingness of so many people who volunteer to assist the refugees. Materially and emotionally. How nice it is to see so many people doing what they can to help these poor people. It has left me speechless. What an ideal world.
Adrian Duré
Adrian Duré works as a producer and documentary filmmaker for Hope Media Europe, the official TV network of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Inter-European Division.
Simon Knobloch, producer at Hope Media Europe, and Adrian Duré are currently with their production team in the town of Marmatiei, Romania, a few meters away from one of the busiest and most migratory border points in recent days, where it is estimated that around 2 million 300 thousand Ukrainians have left the country in search of a new horizon.
Soon, a series of short films with stories of people who are migrating to Europe will be available on the European territory and all over the world, in order to motivate the population to help, donate or receive the thousands of Ukrainian refugees who are looking for a shelter, especially on the European territory.