They come from Odessa, Kherson or Mykolaiv. They fled the war in Ukraine to take refuge in Moldova, a small Eastern European country landlocked between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the east. Of the 8 million people who fled the conflict, 600,000 passed through Moldova and 102,000 settled in this republic which shares more than 1,000 km of borders with neighboring Ukraine.
Moldova is therefore one of the countries that host the largest number of victims of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, if we refer to its general population estimated at 2.6 million inhabitants. A year following the start of the Russian offensive, on February 24, our reporter, Igor Strauss traveled to Moldova to see the reception conditions for these refugees, their needs, their doubts and their hopes. As the conflict drags on and any return to the country becomes utopian in the near future, how do they deal with this situation? How to project oneself into the future when this future is uncertain and written in dotted lines?
We followed the work of the NGO Doctors of the World which offers psychological support to Ukrainian refugees but also to Moldovans and humanitarians working in the field and who are also affected by the chilling stories from the Ukrainian front. And on the Moldovan side, how to manage this influx of refugees in the long term? How to house them, care for them, reassure them, offer them a future in a country that faces major structural difficulties, access to employment and care?
The reception of Ukrainian refugees in Moldova, a long format report signed Igor Strauss carried out by Didier Blue. Translation Igor Tarus.