flight from spain
Events in Ukraine have worldwide repercussions: tensions with Russia have risen, inflation rates are rising, notes L’Independant newspaper. Above all, the conflict “caused the emigration of millions of refugees.” The publication reported that many refugees have arrived in Western Europe: about 100,000 refugees live in France and 125,000 in Spain. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as of August 9, more than 10.5 million people crossed the borders of Ukraine after February 24.
“Thanks to an extraordinary display of solidarity,” the article says, millions of lives were saved. However, the adaptation of refugees faced difficulties. Now many Ukrainians “prefer to return home”. According to them, this is due to low wages and the “too high” cost of living.
“They don’t help us”
“Hello. I’m so sorry to write this message but I’m going back to Ukraine. I can’t live here (in Spain), I just work to pay rent and food. I can’t see what I’m making here. I’m going home, I need money for gas, so any help I really appreciate it, ”- leads to The words of refugee Yuri Blazhenets, El Periódico de España, who have been living in Spain since April.
Yuri asked for help from his Spanish friends via WhatsApp message. The authors of the material noted that Yuri is 42 years old. He is a lawyer and “speaks excellent Spanish” and has become “one of those rare men” who is allowed to leave Ukraine despite his military age. Yuri left the country with his wife. But after a few others they return to Kiev as “interest in the conflict has dwindled and the life of Ukrainian refugees has become more complicated”.
The man told the publication that he was placed in a hotel in Madrid in April and fed free of charge. In return, he was ordered to attend Spanish courses. This angered the man as he was already fluent in the language and “had a degree”. He had former clients in Spain, so instead of studying, he left the city for five days and visited them in hopes of finding a job.
When he returned, he was surprised to find that there was no room for him in the hotel. It turned out that he was expelled from the Red Cross program for supporting internally displaced people after he had not been in the room for more than three days.
Now Yuri and his wife pay for the rooms and hotel rooms on their own, sometimes a friend of the spouses allows them to stay with him.
“I came to Spain by car. Now I have to register it here or I will be fined. The cost of re-registration is more than 5,000 euros as the car is less than a year old. But they do not help us with the expense. Those who have to learn Spanish from scratch are given lessons and already know the language we are being kicked out of the program,” the man complained.
“They just offer unreliable business”
“There are Ukrainian families all over Spain who came to escape the war and left to escape inflation and the uncertain economic situation. Their main argument is that the labor market only offers them precarious jobs and they should invest their entire salary in the costs of paying. In addition, some were excluded from the refugee reception program initiated by the Ministry of Integration and administered by the Red Cross.
Katya Galushka, another Ukrainian, will return to Kiev with her six-year-old daughter at the end of August. Her relatives still live in the capital of Ukraine, and Katya does not have a job in Madrid, no one helps the woman, except for her friends who let her stay the night.
“I’ve been trying to learn Spanish ever since I came here. I was looking for a job, but I only get occasional calls from a shop that pays 40 euros a day,” El Periódico de España told El Periódico de España.
At first, she and her daughter, like Yuri, received help under the Red Cross program. The job-seeking woman had to leave her daughter with a Ukrainian friend and wander around the city. When she returned to the hotel one day, she went to the dining room alone. The staff thought he was leaving the girl. The situation improved, but Katya chose to temporarily move in with her friends.
72 hours later, he and his daughter returned to the hotel and learned that their room had been taken for an extended absence. Now the mother is forced to return to Ukraine with her child, as she cannot find work and housing in Spain.
The Red Cross told the broadcast that its programs were designed for the most needy refugees from Ukraine. Therefore, trips and stays outside the accommodation centers should be justified. Such refugees are excluded if program staff decide that people have other resources for life.
The Padrina Refugee Fund said that displaced people in Spain were “starving” and that authorities “seemed to be retracting the serious condition of these families”.
According to El Periódico de España, some families of Ukrainian refugees do not return to their homeland, but travel from Spain to Germany and Poland: reception of internally displaced persons in these countries is better organized.