Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski holds a press conference in connection with the growing number of refugees from Ukraine to Warsaw.Anna Liminowicz/The Globe and Mail
The mayor of Warsaw has issued a plea to Canada and other countries to show solidarity with Ukraine by helping cities in Poland support the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled the conflict.
“We cannot do it alone,” Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski told a group of foreign journalists Monday. “My plea to the international community is we are slowly becoming overwhelmed.”
Poland has taken in 1.74 million Ukrainian refugees since Russia invaded last month. And while many have moved on to other parts of Europe, an increasing number have remained in Poland.
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Mr. Trzaskowski said 300,000 refugees have settled in Warsaw so far, and that number could easily double in the coming months as the fighting intensifies. The city’s population has already climbed 15 per cent in two weeks, he added.
People, some who have fled Ukraine, line up at a ticket counter at the train station in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, March 13, 2022.Czarek Sokolowski/The Associated Press
“This is the biggest crisis in Europe after the Second World War because we know that there will be more” refugees coming, he said. “I’m not complaining, seeing what’s happening in Ukraine. We will do everything we can to withstand this pressure and we will help in any way we can. I’m just saying that it’s going to get more and more difficult.”
He said the city is struggling to cope with a litany of challenges and that many social services have been stretched to the limit, especially in education and health care.
Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski speaks at a Press conference.Anna Liminowicz/The Globe and Mail
The Ukrainian government’s decision to prevent men 18 to 60 years of age from leaving the country has meant that most of the refugees are women and children. “Out of the 300,000 refugees, half of them are kids,” Mr. Trzaskowski said. “Potentially that’s 150,000 more kids in our schools.”
He added that officials are also trying to deal with tens of thousands of orphans from Ukraine, as well as children with disabilities and mental-health issues.
Few refugees have been tested for COVID-19, and there has been almost no verification of their vaccination status, the mayor said. Additionally, many people in Ukraine received the Chinese Sinovac vaccine, which is not recognized in the European Union. “What do we do with that?” Mr. Trzaskowski asked. He said he has called on Poland’s national government and the EU to step in with a testing and vaccination program, but so far that hasn’t happened.
The city has set up dozens of temporary shelters and is offering free public-transit passes to anyone with a Ukrainian passport. The national government has also introduced legislation that will allow Ukrainians to stay in Poland for 18 months and access its education and health care systems. And Poles can receive 40 zlotys a day, or $11.63, for up to two months for each refugee they house.
Mr. Trzaskowski said he welcomes the government-support programs but the rollout will be left to the city, which has limited resources. For example, he said Warsaw is responsible for issuing identity cards to all refugees and enforcing the payment system for people who accommodate Ukrainians. Managing both will be next to impossible given the city’s staffing levels, he added.
“We are supposed to check and eliminate abuses” in the payment program. “I mean, how? Everyone can declare, ‘I had eight Ukrainians,’ and we’re supposed to pay with government money. It’s going to be incredibly difficult.”
Children play at a hostel, made in an office building intended for demolition, for the refugees who fled Russia's invasion in Ukraine, in Warsaw, Poland March 14, 2022.ADAM STEPIEN/AGENCJA WYBORCZA/Reuters
He added that every time he speaks with a refugee, he finds more issues that need to be addressed. “We’ve opened our borders. We haven’t checked anything – documents, COVID, nothing,” he said. “People just come. That’s what we need to do in order to save them. We can do it in a way which is more organized. We need to plan it systematically, but we need help.”
While residents have shown remarkable support for the refugees with an outpouring of donations and volunteers, there are fears that could wane. Mr. Trzaskowski has rejected calls to offer refugees free parking, fearing it could provoke resentment. “If we do that, in two weeks people will see that their parking places are taken by Ukrainians for free and it might cause problems, and I want to avoid that,” he said. “I want this solidarity to continue. So while making responsible and generous decisions, we also need to think about a potential backlash. We don’t feel it now, we don’t see it now, but it might come.”
There are signs that fatigue among volunteers has begun to set in, and some landlords have told tenants to stop taking in refugees. And the mayor confirmed that there have been cases of refugees being abused.
Mr. Trzaskowski said that despite the challenges, the war in Ukraine was a test for the West and an opportunity to show Russian President Vladimir Putin that Canada and other countries stand together against the invasion. Warsaw has received donations of supplies and offers to resettle refugees from the mayors of Paris, Florence, Berlin and Vienna, as well as the government of Taiwan. But he called on Canada and other countries to “help us out, accept as many people as you can.”
“Ukrainians are fighting for our freedom,” he said. “And this is our contribution to the war. That we show that the West is united and that it has the right response. And that it also comes with assistance to refugees themselves but also to us.”
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Paul Waldie