Leiria Stadium serves as a shelter for Ukrainian refugees: “Portugal was my friend and I already see it as a second home” | report
Four soft toys serve as makeshift goals in a football game used to momentarily dodge the ghosts of war. The children’s charm contrasts with the adults’ apprehension on the other side of the room. Sofia prefers to look at the beginning of a second life in Portugal with a positive attitude, starting with temporary accommodation. “The room has a beautiful view, the stadium is big and we are always seeing sportsmen. I can’t complain, the conditions are good”. The 16-year-old was one of 21 people who arrived in the city of Leiria on Wednesday night, after a three-day trip starting in Poland. She stayed overnight at the Leiria Municipal Stadium, which now serves as a reception point for Ukrainian refugees in the county. The cabins have been converted into rooms with bunk beds. In total, there are 54 beds available.
For Sofia, what was difficult about leaving Ukraine was the feeling of abandoning childhood friends and school in exchange for safety. “Many were friends since the age of six, they were always my classmates. Both they and my grandmother stayed in Ukraine. I don’t have friends here, but I expect new people. I really want to go back to school and learn to speak Portuguese. This was a country and a friend, I already see it as my second home”, with a smile.
Sitting on the bunk next to her daughter, Alina thinks, she thinks she doesn’t understand the English spoken by Sofia. She is the young woman who from a translator to her mother, who serves the psychological impacts with the approach of the Russians. Finding a job is now a priority for Alina.
“My mother says it is a very difficult situation. She that I’m just a teenager understands my years that were supposed to be the best of life. She doesn’t know what we’re going to do next. It was difficult to make the decision to leave Ukraine, but we heard the sirens three to five times a day, it was very bad for our psychological state. Bombs fall near our city. We decide to leave, while the mother pauses her speech to wipe away her tears.
“When they don’t call two or three days…”
The group of people from Leiria is made up exclusively of women and children, which men aged between 18 and 18 have to help Russian troops.
Tatiana lives on the outskirts of Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth largest (with one million inhabitants), does not believe that the reality she knew and ceased to exist only two weeks ago. The decision to leave the country was difficult, but the need to keep a 15-year-old daughter safe spoke louder. Do not count how the support of the international bus given by the Ukrainian, when the daughter managed to show a picture of the bus, she managed to get the daughter to show a picture leaning against the window in Poland in Poland, which managed to show the newspapers. “As things are so short time…”, she blurts out.
Security takes on a bittersweet flavor as one thinks back to Ukraine and what was left there. Tat’s husband is in the Army and her parents stayed in the childhood home, a resolution to the conflict.
“My husband had an accident as a child and was left with 80% of his body burned. Even so, not released from military service and is helping the Army, trucks went and carrying out other tasks. He is not in active combat, but still, the concern is too much”, regrettable.
Viktoria is another one of the women who constantly bring “the heart in her hands”. In 2014, she took her son to the Maidan protests, at a time when Ukraine was struggling to join the European Union. Now 25 years old – and despite diabetes and other health problems she leaves the country with her mother fighting on the front lines in the outskirts of Kiev. “He managed to get his mother and cousins out of the country, but he stayed there with the troops being fought in Kiev. He has diabetes and doesn’t even deviate from going into combat, but since he has a military background, he volunteered. I asked him not to go and he told me he couldn’t, that the country helped with his help, translates the interpreter Natália Nokikova, who helped with the bus trip.
For now, maintaining communication with family members through social networks has not been difficult. For security reasons, the men do not disclose a location or extensive details about operations: “They just say they are fine.” The problem happens when days go by without a message: the thought quickly goes for the worse. “If they stay for a couple of days… that’s when they start talking”, Tatiana resumes.
Stadium was center of pandemic during
In the stadium, sport now lives half-heartedly with humanitarian aid. The baths are taken in the equipment used for game-day meals brought by a company and hired by the municipality. This stadium is a new way to use the one built for Euro 2004, the home of União de Leiria, which had a construction cost of over 60 million euros.
“The Euro 2004 stadiums were intended to become sports venues with thousands of people watching. [aos eventos]. Leiria, Aveiro, Coimbra, Algarve are not fulfilling their function and are oversized. It is also up to the owners of the spaces, namely to find solutions to make this investment profitable”, explains to PÚBLICO Gonçalopes, mayor of Leiria. The district has a very strong Ukrainian presence, with the socialist adding that, in 2020, Leiria had more than 1000 registered Ukrainians.
During the Leiria stadium, the pandemic was used as a transformation center and the cabins into pandemics. This education is the new life for the complex, with the mayor saying that there are already solutions for the education of the youngest. The objective is to integrate them in the shortest possible time.
There is a set deadline for the education of these people at the stadium, but it is very important as teams from the municipality, health and social security “You cannot act and develop as specific measures to integrate these people. Especially because each one is different: we have young people in basic education, others in secondary education, very different levels of education”, he summarizes.
Gonçalo Looferropeses praises how many “businesses of companies” sent by the local businesses, or future businesses of refugees in Portugal. Anticipating the rise in the number of Ukrainians arriving in Portugal, the socialist says that spaces are already reserved – from accommodation, to council houses and private offers – to help as many people as possible.