Viola Gienger: 1.5 million who fled war with Russia in Ukraine’s invisible crisis
Picket near the General Prosecutor's Office against the eviction of refugees from the Mezhyhirya on July 8 in Kyiv.
When 5,000 people flooded into a city of 500,000 in one night with little more than the pajamas on their backs, they were greeted by the mayor and an assemblage of churches and civic groups ready to embrace them with shelter, food, clothing and moral support. The scene might sound like something from Europe’s west, where refugees are flooding in from the Middle East and Africa. But this is Ukraine in the midst of a war and an economic crisis, and two years into upheaval, the strain is beginning to show.
