Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
I saw a steady stream of people coming into Poland from Ukraine at one of the points where you can cross on foot. Most were in small groups, families but also people who had met on the journey.
I asked one young man, Nikita, how he had managed to avoid the restrictions on men of fighting age leaving Ukraine – he told me he would be 18 in a month and thus had a small window to get out. After the arrivals pass through a white tent on the Polish side, some are met by relatives or friends -or travel on alone if they know where they are going and have the means to fund their onward journey.
Ilona, a manicurist from Kyiv, was poised at first but broke down when she spoke of the husband she had left behind. The woman next to her was traveling with a child, her seven-year-old daughter Liza, who she said now knew all about Putin and being under attack. This group was being hosted by a Ukrainian friend living in Poland, Yevgeny, who was there to greet them but is desperately worried about his own wife and daughter who are in Mariupol. It’s been under bombardment and he has no way of getting them out.
The only comfort at the moment is that they are still in phone contact.