Europe’s Trains Take Fighters to Ukraine, Bring Back Refugees
The train, run by a
Czech private operator, RegioJet, was on a special mission. It carried
humanitarian aid to the border, as well as a handful of people -volunteer
fighters and Prague-based Ukrainians rushing to the Polish-Ukrainian border to
collect fleeing family members.
On the way back, it took
refugees into the heart of Europe, away from Ukraine and the war, and deeper
into open-ended displacement.
Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine is turning Europe’s trains and ornate imperial-era stations into a new
refugee crisis network, putting them on a war footing yet again. At least a
dozen states- and privately owned railway operators have opened up their
services for free to refugees, and their cargo trains are being deployed to
bring humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
The German operator
Deutsche Bahn, in cooperation with other major European railway companies such
as ICE, TGV and Thalys, now offer completely free cross-continental travel to
people fleeing Ukraine to Germany, Denmark, Belgium, France, Poland, the Czech
Republic, Austria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. Deutsche
Bahn is also putting food, water and sanitary items on its freight trains and
sending them into Ukraine.
More than 2.5 million
people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, a staggering
figure in an incredibly brief period of time, most of them to Poland, according
to local authorities and the United Nations refugee agency. Half of the
refugees are children.
The small city of
Przemysl fast became a key point of entry for hundreds of thousands of refugees
in the course of two weeks, turning into an operations center and temporary
shelter for the exhausted, hungry people fleeing Ukraine. Volunteers blew up
balloons in poodle shapes to entertain children. Nuns handed out food. And
Ukrainian-speaking helpers directed people to the trains that would take them
to new homes, delivering them deeper into the heart of Europe.
Many Ukrainians fleeing
are joining family members and friends already living and working in the
European Union. Recent estimates put the number of Ukrainian migrants in the
European Union at around 2.7 million.