A Dublin man drove from Ireland to Eastern Poland to deliver donations to Ukrainian refugees.
Barry Hughes, from Glenageary, set off on his journey in the early hours of Saturday morning and is currently on his way back to Dublin.
He was delivering a van full of donations gathered by the Beacon Hospital, including essentials such as baby food, clothes and sanitary products.
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Barry told Dublin Live that he wanted to do "something more" to help those fleeing the war.
He said: "We all saw what was going on on the telly and the news, the massive exodus of Ukrainians from their own country. It was just horrible to watch.
"I did what a lot of people did, I went out to Lidl and filled a trolley with a list of stuff that we found on Facebook or whatever.
"But then I watched a video of a man who was sending his wife and little daughter off on a train while he went back to fight for his country.
"He was in tears, his daughter was in tears. I pulled over to watch it and I was in tears.
"I said I have to do something more here. I was thinking what else could I do.
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"You hear the saying 'do as much as you can' so I said, I can drive a van, there's an idea."
Barry was able to borrow a van from a friend of his and began planning his journey.
He said: "I was chatting to one of my mates and his missus works in the Beacon Hospital in Sandyford. He said they were looking for drivers to deliver donations that they were receiving so I put my name down.
"I had a chat with the missus obviously and I went down a couple of days later and filled it up."
In the early hours of Saturday morning, Barry took the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead, and then drove to Dover.
He got a ferry from Dover to Calais in France and then began his drive to Poland.
Barry arrived at Przemysl yesterday morning, a city close to the Ukrainian border and described the scenes he witnessed while he was there.
"I was told to prepare myself for what I'm going to see because it's pretty horrific," he said.
"It's not nice to see the effect that some humans can have on other humans.
"A few trains came into the train station at around 10am yesterday morning.
"Everyone was in the train station. There were little benches with soup and some food for when the people come in.
"And then basically everyone is walking around and they don't know where to go and they don't know what to do.
"There's kids crying, there's dogs walking around on leashes. It was chaos."
He said there's a set-up for refugees to get their documentation checked and then there are buses to transport them to different parts of Europe.
Barry said: "Outside the train station there's buses, I think there were three buses there when I was there.
"There were ones for Denmark, Germany and France and I believe they just ask them where they want to go, and you just jump on a bus and off you go."
Barry met drivers from all over Europe on a similar mission to him while he was dropping off the donations for the Beacon Hospital.
The Dubliner said he would make the journey all over again.
"I would do it again next week again if I could. If I could get a van and permission off the missus and work I'd go back again.
"It's working out 1,000 at least on diesel, 700 or 800 on ferries and a couple of nights in a hotels, so it all adds up."
Barry set up a GoFundMe to help cover the costs of the journey.
Over €3,000 has been raised and all money leftover will be donated to the Irish Red Cross.
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