Ukrainian Margarita (27) fled to the Netherlands, but went back: ‘I missed my family’
Tens of thousands of refugee Ukrainians return every week. Margarita also decided to pack her bags again after her flight to the Netherlands, she tells RTL Nieuws.
Two missiles
She now lives in her apartment in Kiev. Three to five times a day the air raid siren goes off and goes to the hall of the building, the ‘boiler shelter’. “That’s the safest place. I’ll wait there. There’s an ‘alarm box’ with everything I need if the building becomes impossible, a first aid kit and water.”
The situation in Kiev is unstable, she tells by email. Her English is communicating, communicating by mail can solve her better. “Kiev looks peaceful, but just yesterday two rockets flew over my head and a residential building failed, so… it’s not the safest place on Earth.”
So many people return
Estimated to flee over 5.5 million people Ukraine since February 24. Tens of thousands of refugee Ukrainians return every week. according to the recent figures from the UN More than 1.3 million Ukrainians have re-entered their country since February 28.
It concerns people who have gone to Ukraine to fight against the Russians or to help in some other way.
Not the safest place, but after a month and a half she is back home with her friends and family. To thank the people who love her in the Netherlands, she shares her story. “They attack me that my life had not stopped on that 24th February.”
Without a plan, without money
February 24: The day Vladimir Putin announced his “special military operation” and Margarita left everything behind. Her family, her friends, her home. “My friends it was difficult to defend the city when burgers were left behind, it was better to go to it.”
But when Margarita wanted to go, there were already no more train tickets, the airspace was closed and exits of the city were shelled. Going back to her childhood home in the town of Kryvy Rih was not an option. “The Russian army attacked nearby, so our entire district was evacuated.”
after all, it was an evacuation train that meant her. She ended up in Poland, took a bus to the Netherlands and spent weeks in Airbnb’s. Until her savings ran out. “I read on Facebook that the Red Cross could help me with housing. I saved the address and was at Amsterdam Central Station on April 1. Without money, without a plan, with only Google Maps.”
‘Who will red my homeland when he leaves?’
But with lovely volunteers, she says. She is eternally grateful to them. In a Van der Valk hotel in Drachten she received free accommodation, free food. “But I do matter. She made me feel like people could be so nice and caring to strangers. I never thought people could be so nice and caring to strangers.”
In that safe place, a lot of thinking also started. All sorts of questions ran through her head. What if I no longer have a house? What if my brother (a soldier) dies? What if my country will no longer exist after the war? “I thought, who will save my homeland if he leaves?”
Most of all, she missed her family and friends, with whom she spoke every day over the Internet. It was hard to watch the news and think that I was safe, they were in danger. †
too dangerous
It made Margarita want to go back after another half month, despite warnings. “Everyone said it was too dangerous to come back.
Still she went. “When the army withdrew, there was only a danger of aerial bombardment, and that danger will remain until the end of the war. Staying abroad for that long would be torture for me. So I told everyone I was coming back.”
After an inspection, her apartment in Kiev turned out to be habitable and safe enough. “I was so happy when I heard that I could go back, that I laughed like an idiot for the rest of the day. I told the volunteers I was going back, signed the original papers and took the bus.”
The first sight of Kiev
A long drive from Amsterdam to the Polish border followed. In the middle of the night she boarded the train from Poland to Kiev. “The train often had to wait because of shelling in Ukraine. But I was so happy that the station and my house were undamaged that I forgot how hard the journey was.”
What she hasn’t forgotten: how tough the first sight of Kiev was. “It was hard to see the pain in my eyes. I was happy to see people at home and my friends. I was happy to have my home and friends at all.”
“But despite everything, people still laugh, drink coffee in the morning, buy flowers,” she says. “And I think we’ve become more open with each other. With strangers.”
Before and after
Her life has completely changed. Previously, she ignored politics. She never watched the news at night. “I was preparing to run a marathon, so I jogged a lot. I met friends regularly, read a lot and had fun. I had crazy plans for the future, like learning to paraglide a triathlon.”
Nothing is over. “From the first day of the war, I read and listen to the news constantly, even at night. I only make short-term plans: what I’m going to eat tonight, what I’m going to do this week, where I’m going to live this month. I’m more sensitive become for sounds, for every word. I listen to every sound. What flies from drives, what flies from turns, how far away the last one was.”
Every day she gets up around 8 a.m. and has breakfast after a workout. She works, learns programming, watches the news of speaking with friends of family. And they help people. Donating blood, delivering medicines, packing food packages. She becomes business when someone near her needs help.
“As long as I can. I understand that my gift is a drop on some kind of plate, but if everyone makes a drop like that, we drop, drop an ocean. I do what I can and I’m happy when I get a smile in return. “
Above all, they hope that the war will end soon. “I hope the war will be over by the end of the summer. For me and my friends, it’s about making plans for the future. With war, that’s impossible.”
How safe is it in Kyiv?
At the moment many refugees are returning to Ukraine, says correspondent Olaf Koens. “At the beginning, a lot of people fled because they were afraid that the whole country would be taken over. That was not discovered that way. So that threat is now gone.”
The Russians withdrew from the Kiev area last month, he says. “So it’s pretty safe. No more fighting, no more troops there, tanks, and no plane bombing.”
What is still safe – and that applies to all of Ukraine: the Russians still use long-range missiles to bomb targets. “Usually those goals are goals. Bridges, the oil depots, infrastructure. That is for the civilian population aviation safe, but also scary.”
You also hear the air raid siren go off for that, says Koens. And on versions mines are constructs. “From landmines near a highway to mines in houses where Russians have stayed. But that’s only in the areas where Russians stayed, in most parts of the city it’s not that bad.”