The journey from war takes days and weeks. And while most people fleeing Ukraine are met with open arms and compassion, Nawa, Kathy and Solomon haven’t always had that experience. Like other people of color seeking safety in neighboring countries, they’ve found themselves repeatedly pushed back, forced out of evacuation trains and threatened with violence when they did try to board.
“They were trying to show that there are levels to this and we were the last,” said Solomon, a 35-year-old locksmith who fled the city of Kharkiv.
Nawa and Kathy, students from Zambia in their 20s, and Solomon, who’s from Kenya, left Ukraine in the days following the Feb. 24 Russian invasion and met in Warsaw, where through social media they found young volunteers offering them a lift by car out of Poland. As they work out where to go next, it’s not clear they’ll find refuge in Europe.
