Ukrainians face long wait at borders as officials seek to ease
bottlenecks
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[February 28, 2022]
By Kuba Stezycki and Jiri Skacel
MEDYKA, Poland/UBLA, Slovakia (Reuters) -
Poland sought to ease passage into the European Union on Monday for
around quarter of a million Ukrainians waiting at European border
crossings in freezing conditions after fleeing the Russian invasion of
their country.
With men of conscription age prevented from leaving Ukraine, groups of
mainly women and children arrived at borders in eastern Poland, Slovakia
and Hungary and in northern and northeastern Romania.
Wait times to cross borders ranged from a few hours at small crossings
to more than a day at busier ones such as Medyka in Poland where lines
on the Ukraine side stretched back dozens of kilometres.
"The queues are huge," said Polish prime minister's chief of staff
Michal Dworczyk, who added border police were allowing in people without
documents and that the government was talking with Ukrainian
counterparts about simplifying procedures.
"If we count the functioning border points there are certainly over a
quarter of a million people at the borders," he said.
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The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv tweeted that Ukrainian border guards were
waiving exit screening procedures for women and children to reduce wait
times as snow began falling.
More than 300,000 people have entered the European Union since fighting
started last week and officials are preparing to deal with increasing
numbers.
The invasion has sparked an exodus which EU officials have said could
displace 7 million people. The European Union is also preparing to grant
Ukrainians who flee the war the right to stay and work in the 27-nation
bloc for up to three years.
UNCLOG BOTTLENECKS
As officials searched for ways to unclog bottlenecks, Ukrainians living
in the European Union anxiously waited at borders to greet escaping
family members.
"We were waiting here three days and they were on the road for over four
days," said Veronika Sahlikova Kufelt, who travelled from Germany to
meet her nieces and grandmother at the Ubla crossing in Slovakia.
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![](../images/022822pics/news_o27.jpg)
A volunteer talks to a woman and children who fled from Russia's
invasion of Ukraine, at the border crossing in Siret, Romania,
February 28, 2022. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Feb/28/images/ads/current/ldn_sda_062409.png) Poland, whose Ukrainian community of
around 1 million is the region's largest, has welcomed many people
escaping Ukraine.
Polish border authorities said more than 281,000 have entered Poland
since Feb. 24, with nearly 100,000 crossing on Sunday and at least
another 28,000 arriving on Monday.
At Medyka, Poland's busiest border crossing, officials loaded new
arrivals into tour buses before ferrying them to a reception centre
in the nearby town of Przemysl where friends, relatives and
volunteers waited.
New arrivals huddled in blankets around fires as they waited in the
snowy, cold weather to leave the reception centre.
"I took a train from Kyiv to Lviv to a oint where the taxi put us,"
one Ukrainian woman said. "I walked the last 50 kilometres."
The mayor of Przemysl, Wojciech Bakun, has called for people to stop
bringing donations because the city's warehouses are full and not to
arrive in cars to pick people up as there are no parking places.
Across central Europe, authorities set up makeshift reception
centres in tents where people could get medical aid and process
asylum papers, while thousands of volunteers have driven to the
borders with donations of food, blankets and clothes, offering
transport services and shelter.
In Romania where volunteers were trying to provide raincoats in
snowy conditions, 70,803 Ukrainians have arrived since Feb. 24, with
more than half departing for destinations in other countries,
officials said.
(Additional reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Anna Koper in
Warsaw and Luiza Ilie in Bucharest, Writing by Michael Kahn, editing
by Ed Osmond)
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