From bad to worse

The authorities of the EU countries are not able to protect Ukrainian refugees from criminal threats. Children bear the biggest brunt.

The number of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war to different countries of the world has exceeded 3 million. Belarus continues to accept the unfortunate people, providing them with all kinds of assistance and support. In addition to the desire to help, there is an obvious criminal aspect to disadvantaged people in other states. Large criminal structures and individual scoundrels are not averse to taking advantage of the desperate situation of the Ukrainians.

Heartless ‘fishers of souls’

Despite the regular diplomatic spats between Warsaw and Kyiv, the share of Ukrainians in Poland has been steadily growing in recent years. However, with the beginning of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, a truly colossal wave of Ukrainian refugees rushed into Poland. No wonder there appeared those who are not averse to making money on desperate people. Even Euronews, which idealises Poland and constantly demonises Russia, had to admit this week that young, defenceless refugee women, often with small children, are potential victims of perpetrators, “Smugglers are trying to cash in on the migration crisis that erupted after the start of the war in Ukraine. There is a danger of falling into the hands of other criminals. A few days ago, a man was arrested in Poland, who settled a refugee and raped her.”
Polish volunteer Joanna Marking, who runs a shelter for refugee mothers in the town of Medyka, is more candid, “In the current situation, there is a small percentage of people involved in human trafficking, paedophiles or other criminals. Therefore, those who find themselves without support, tired and exhausted, are extremely vulnerable.”
This was confirmed to Euronews by Hanna, a refugee from Odessa, “We’re just lucky. Because bad people tried to take away all money from my friend at the station. At the same time, they looked like those who want to help, but they didn’t actually want to help.”

Slave traders

It goes without saying that with the beginning of the mass exodus of refugees from Ukraine, the criminals revived not only in Poland. Andrea Bujor, a volunteer with the Romanian NGO World Vision Romania, says, “The risk of such cases is very high. Every year a lot of women become victims of smugglers. It should be noted that children are also at great risk. In times like these, people mobilise, in Romania a lot of people wanted to help, and I’m proud of it, but there is a risk that there may be people who want to take advantage of someone else’s tragedy.”
The Romanian police are cooperating with the National Agency against Trafficking in Persons to prevent crime. At the border, women are warned to remain vigilant. In order to combat human smuggling in Poland and Romania, civilian intelligence officers work in crowded places.
The European law enforcement officers warned their Latvian colleagues about the fact that Ukrainian refugees are at risk of becoming victims of human trafficking.

PHOTO BY REUTERS


According to the TV3 channel, the State Police of Latvia received information that people noticed criminal elements near the refugee reception centres, wishing to make slaves of the Ukrainians.
“Persons from Ukraine are at very high risk of falling into the hands of traffickers. For men, this would be labour exploitation, for women — sexual exploitation,” says Armands Lubarts, State Police Human Trade and Pimping Prevention Department Chief.
However, according to TV3, there is little chance of averting the danger threatening the refugees. When individuals offer to accommodate Ukrainian refugees in their homes, no one officially registers, so the police do not have the opportunity to come for an unscheduled check to make sure people are all right. Moreover, Ukrainians often fell into labour slavery in the Baltics even before the start of the special operation in Ukraine. According to the same department, only last year three criminal proceedings were initiated in Latvia in connection with labour exploitation. However, lawyers believe that in fact there are much more such cases.

Euroracism of the 21st century

Another unseemly side of the wave of Ukrainian refugees was their obvious racial segregation along. According to the BBC Russian Service, citizens of Ukraine who have moved to the EU can count on comprehensive assistance from the European Union.
At the same time, citizens of third countries, even those who have lived in Ukraine for 20 years or more, cannot count on almost anything except humiliation and racist attacks. As a result, thousands of Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Vietnamese and people from the Middle East and Africa are stuck on the already troubled Ukrainian-Polish border in complete confusion and hopelessness.
Bus drivers who are ready to take refugees even to Belgium explain that they are afraid of getting a criminal article for transporting illegal immigrants, because the status of refugees with non-Ukrainian citizenship in the EU remains unclear. The UN Refugee Agency has repeatedly called on host country authorities to refrain from discriminating against refugees from Ukraine.

Just walk past

However, some ‘pranks’ are allowed in relation to refugees in Poland — even pure-blooded Ukrainians. Trying to take off at least part of the incredibly growing burden, they are trying to get rid of some Ukrainians, and send them to Lithuania. 
Edmundas Jakilaitis, one of the initiators of the Strong Together coordinating centre for volunteers, told the Baltic news agency DELFI that Poland sends three to four buses to Lithuania every day from the centre for refugees created near the Ukrainian border,
“That is, 150-200 people to Lithuania. A bus from Lublin goes to the centre every day, then people transfer to another bus, before that they eat hot food in the centre and go to Lithuania... We find a lot of people who walk across the border on foot, they have small children, they are cold, the children get sick etc. Every day we receive about 600 calls.”
Head of the Lithuanian Red Cross Kristina Meide says, “The concern is that we already have growing at 1,000 people a day, and we already see that we will really need more volunteers and humanitarian aid.”
Here are few quotes from the ‘Children at war’ BBC Russian Service news report
• Founded by American veterans, the non-profit organisation Aerial Recovery organises the safe removal of children from orphanages located in the conflict zone. There are many such children — UNICEF estimates the number of children in orphanages and foster homes in the country at 100,000. Other sources say there could be up to 200,000 single children leaving Ukraine. However, veterans say that some children are missing, and admit that they could become victims of human traffickers.
• Concern about the problem of children was expressed by EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson. She said, “We also have some reports of criminals taking orphans from orphanages in Ukraine, crossing the border pretending that they are relatives to the child and then using them for trafficking purposes.” “Everybody knows it’s going on, but it’s difficult to say the extent because of the chaos here. The authorities are trying to track what’s happened to all of the children, but there is no paper trail,” said Martin Kvernbekk, an employee of the Salam LADC.

Photo by REUTERS


• “They’re very easy prey — they’re looking for assistance. So if you’re an adult with some food or refuge, they will come with you. They don’t know any better,” says Kvernbekk. He has heard about children going missing from a number of different sources, and reports of people smugglers wearing reflective vests and pretending to belong to organisations helping the relief effort. “The gangs are very advanced. We are talking about big, well-financed networks that do this for a living. Now it’s a war, it’s chaos, and they’re exploiting the fact there is disorder to be able to snatch more kids and women,” Kvernbekk continues.
• According to Chief of Operations Aerial Recovery Jeremy Locke, Lviv authorities expressed concern that 5,000 children on their records were unaccounted for. They appear in the documents, but they cannot find them. “They’re either casualties of war, or they’ve slipped across the border, or have been taken out of the border by smugglers or by people that are doing it the wrong way,” says Locke.

By Maksim Osipov