Front Burner - Bonus | Nothing is Foreign: Compassion, hypocrisy and racism in the Ukrainian refugee crisis

Episode Date: March 5, 2022

More than a million people have fled Ukraine into countries to the west, as Russian attacks continue. The refugee crisis has spurred an outpouring of international support, as neighbouring European countries open their borders and homes. But the support this time is strikingly different from how some countries have responded to refugees from other conflicts — like Syria and Iraq — who were kept out, in some cases with violence. The distinction is especially stark, after stories have emerged of some Black and Asian refugees fleeing Ukraine facing violence, harassment and racism at the border. This week on Nothing is Foreign, CBC’s new, weekly world news podcast, we hear from people on the ground including those who have experienced discrimination and explore how governments can treat skin colour as a visa. Featuring: Tatiana, Alexandra, Nastia, Rubi, Ahmed, all refugees from Ukraine. Sara Cincurova, a journalist covering humanitarian issues at Ukraine-Slovakia border. Chris Melzer, the senior spokesperson of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Poland.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. As tensions escalated, a mass exodus of Ukrainians trying to escape the country continues. Over the last week, more than a million Ukrainian refugees have fled to neighboring countries, including Poland, Slovakia and Romania, as the Russian assault has turned Ukrainian cities and towns into war zones.

All journeys now lead west. In days, the lives of millions upended. At the borders, the lineups are being measured not in hours, but in days. And the scenes are chaotic. Still, Ukrainians are being broadly welcomed into neighboring countries. They're opening their borders and their citizens are opening their homes. But that hasn't been a universal experience. Many Black and brown people crossing the very same borders say they haven't been able to easily pass through nor gotten a warm welcome.

The official literally looked me in my eye and said in his language, only Ukrainians, that's all. That if you are Black, you shouldn't walk. On this episode, we're heading to the borders to hear from Ukrainian refugees about how they got there and everything they've left behind. And from Black and Brown refugees, about the racism they're facing as they try to cross to safety. I'm Tamara Kandaker, and you're listening to Nothing is Foreign.

We're starting at a train station, about 15 kilometers west of the Poland-Ukraine border. It's packed with refugees sitting on the floors, walking through the halls. They look exhausted. Most of them don't have that much stuff. They hold their children close. For many of them, the station is the first place they've been able to rest and feel safe in days. place they've been able to rest and feel safe in days. This is Tatyana, a 46-year-old woman from Dnipro. She and her family had been planning to stay in the city if war broke out. We prepared the basement, bought groceries, water, and there was enough of everything for one month.

Bought groceries, water, and there was enough of everything for one month. The basement is good and it's quite safe. But last Thursday morning, everything changed. When we were leaving, we heard the sirens. The first started shooting at us on the 24th at 5 a.m. We were woken up by the sounds of explosions outside of the city. They were bombing the airport. Our friends had left with small children to leave and told us to come and join them. We took almost nothing with us, just some warm clothes, because we thought that if we end up in a camp, we will need them. We have two suitcases.

She says they left behind their relatives and stuffed themselves onto a train with hundreds of other people. Some traveled standing, while others put mattresses down on the ground and sat on them. The train was absolutely full. When we were passing through Balaya-Serkhov, they switched off the light, just in case. Now, Tatiana and her family are planning to make their way to relatives in Finland. and her family are planning to make their way to relatives in Finland. Nastia is 34.

She's married and she has two kids. And before war broke out, she sometimes mused about moving to Western Europe. I told my husband that I like Europe and maybe I would like to live there when the kids grow up a bit. Now, she has no choice but to leave Kiev, her home of eight years, behind. She says no one expected Putin to attack the capital. They thought if anything,

the fighting would be contained to the eastern to attack the capital. They thought if anything, the fighting would be contained to the eastern regions of the country. Nastia and her family found a taxi and they took it to a village outside of Kyiv. From there, they took a train further west to Lviv before eventually getting to the Poland-Ukraine border. And while she used to dream about leaving Ukraine, now she just wishes

she could go back home. But I realized how I love Kyiv, how I love Podil. We realized that we don't want to live anywhere else. We want to go back to Kyiv. When you have something, you don't appreciate it. We love Kyiv. When you have something, you don't appreciate it. We love Kyiv. For now, her family's plan is to go to Germany. My name is Ahmed Fatih Dursun, and I am from South Africa. I am currently 18 years of age.

Ahmed had been in Ukraine for just a couple of days before the start of the war, visiting his father. And the next day, war. And he says, son, pack up, we're going. But in terms of the journey from Ukraine to Poland, it was by far the most difficult days of my entire life. I can never come close to articulating the experience. It was literal hell. And I'm sleeping on the street. I haven't slept for 72 hours.

I haven't eaten absolutely nothing but two slices of bread. Water we find on the street, someone else's water, we drink it. I've never done things like this in my life. I saw people having heart attacks in front of me and dying. I saw people sleeping in the street, just passed out I saw people collapsing on each other I saw people crushing each other standing on an actual woman a woman was lying down trying to get across to the border and people are running over and she is screaming and nobody cares I have seen things in these past four days that I cannot even explain it because I don't even want people to hear such things. Ahmed is thrilled to be safely out of Ukraine, and he's planning to go back to South Africa.

And if I'm being honest with you right now, there's a smile on my face, but it's only thanks to the people in Poland and thanks to the people around Poland and thanks to the people around us and everything they're doing, their efforts. It is greatly appreciated. You'll hear more from him later on in this episode. But for now, we're going to head to Ukraine's border with Slovakia, a country that's taken in more than 50,000 refugees so far. Slovakia, a country that's taken in more than 50,000 refugees so far.

Last week, we talked to freelance journalist Sarah Sinkarova. She'd been reporting in Ukraine and found herself stranded at her hotel in Kharkiv, trying to figure out how to get out of the city. And I got back in touch with her this week to see how she was doing. And thankfully, it turned out she was okay. But we had a lot of trouble connecting. Her internet connection was unreliable and the phone calls kept dropping. So we did this interview using WhatsApp voice memos, sending them back and forth to each other over the course of an hour. Hey, Sarah. Okay, we're trying this again. I know you've had a crazy last few days. And I wonder if you can describe to me what has happened over the last few days and where you are right now.

Right. So on Thursday and on Friday, I was in a hotel in Kharkiv. So Kharkiv is the town in eastern Ukraine. And we all know that right now it's being completely, completely destroyed and under attack. And I actually ended up stranded in Kharkiv on my own. Essentially, you know, as a freelance journalist, essentially nobody wants to work with you while you're in a war zone. So I was left, you know, and and and I had no no newsroom so I was actually you know a stranded civilian myself and and and you know my survival was a miracle um I was in a hotel with other journalists and on Friday morning the alarms the sirens went

off and we had to hide in an underground shelter in the hotel. At that time, there was already talks of Kharkiv being, or started to being, you know, encircled. There is now fighting on the streets of Kharkiv as Russian troops enter Ukraine's second largest city. Obviously, it was one of the most difficult situations in my life as a freelance journalist. At that time, I was approached by the Committee to Protect Journalists, an organization that really saved my life, who found a team that was leaving Kharkiv

and that was able to securely transport me by car to the west of Ukraine, which was essentially a miracle. And as I was crossing into western Ukraine by car, I was in a town called Kropivnitsky in central Ukraine, which at that time was very far from all the places where hostilities were taking place. However, it was just like any other Ukrainian town.

It was full of desperate refugees and IDPs seeking shelter. All the places where active fighting is not taking place are essentially just becoming places of shelter where hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees head. People are hiding in schools and in public buildings and all the hotels are full and there's like desperate people on the run everywhere I was able to be safely evacuated to live and from there I decided to I really decided to

continue to report I was able to uh start following a story of a refugee couple that is currently trying to flee to the border with Slovakia, which is also incredible because Slovakia is actually my home country. So we've made the road by car from Lviv and we are now headed toward the Slovak border in Uzhgorod. And we've been waiting in this line in a car for the last 28 hours, and we are nowhere near. We are still waiting in the line,

and I think it's going to take at least another day or two. Sarah and the couple she's been traveling with have been lucky enough to make it to the border. But many others are still trying to get there, facing what she describes as impossible odds. There is a massive lack of fuel. So even if you have a car and say you are on the road and, you know, finding enough fuel to drive, you know, through Ukraine from the east to west. It's, you know, it's around the east to west it's you know it's around 1600 kilometers to the slovak border it's it's it's really very very hard in the western parts

obviously there's a massive massive traffic jam um total panic the couple that i've been crossing with this is their ticket second time crossing because they had tried it once before but they didn't have enough food and water. I've heard reports of elderly people, vulnerable people for whom it might be very challenging to be on a road like that. Finding a place to stay is mission impossible in Ukraine. For me and certainly for many of the refugees who are stranded here, even though, you know, we are stranded in a line that, you know, sometimes it feels like it's never going to be possible to cross, there is a sense of relief because we are not in a war zone, right?

We are in a warm car and all we have to do is wait and, you know, and we survived. have to do is wait. And, you know, and we survived. Yeah, Sarah, I just want to say I really appreciate the time that you're taking to talk to us because I can't imagine what you have gone through over the last few days. And the fact that you're able to do this, we just really appreciate it. But tell me more about what you're seeing at the border. What is the situation there right now and what's it been like to wait in that queue? I think at this point, hundreds of thousands of people trying to flee.

We all sit in cars. There are some volunteers around to give out some water and there are some medical professionals that we've seen. I've heard reports of cars being left alone because people just, you know, they just let go of the idea of crossing and they just decided to cross by foot because that's quicker. It's essentially a road that goes through the woods. So, you know, a lot of the women and children will go out to the woods,

you know, to the toilet the women and children will go out to the woods, you know, to the toilet, essentially, because there is no toilet. And then in the night, it's, you know, it's a very strange situation. Everyone kind of falls asleep and all the drivers fall asleep. And then when the line moves a little bit and the person from the car behind will come out of their car and they would knock at, you know, the window of the driver in front of them who had fallen asleep and say, hey, you know, hey, hey, man, move on, you know. And it's kind of moving very, very slowly like this. And, you know, it's taking hours, but at the same time, we are safe. The situation Sarah's describing at the Ukraine-Slovakia border sounds similar to what's happening at the borders between Ukraine and other neighboring countries. Chris Melzer is the senior spokesperson for UNHCR,

and he's been traveling around the eight different border crossings between Ukraine and Poland. And here's how he describes what he's been seeing. Well, the situation is the same on all of the eight border crossing points we have between Poland and Ukraine. It's always the same picture that we have long, long, long lines of cars waiting, so 15 kilometers, 25 miles, people telling us that they waited for three days until they could enter Poland. The refugees we are seeing are almost only women and children. And they had no real food, definitely no warm food and only crackers or something like that. They had no bathrooms, small children. Imagine it's freezing cold. Imagine you need to change your baby on the frozen ground or inside the car.

Imagine you need to change your baby on the frozen ground or inside the car. And imagine you have to do that with the knowledge that your husband is 200 kilometers behind you, maybe already dead, or maybe you will never see him again. That you're going, that you have lost everything and you're going to a more or less unknown country. you're going to a more or less unknown country. I will not pretend that I know how these people are feeling, but I'm quite sure it must be terrible. Yeah, we've been talking to some of the refugees that are waiting in these lines, and the strength and resilience of these people is really, really remarkable. What kind of reception are they getting from Poland? You know, I said to my wife a couple of days ago, last Thursday, I lost my belief in mankind and humanity. But here I found it back. Here are so many examples from ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

From the government, yes, this is one thing. They're doing a good job. We really have to say that. They prepared well. They have a lot of reception facilities here, schools, gymnasiums, small hotels, or something like that. But this is the job of a government to do that.

But what really the people are doing here is so amazing. So here's the border border and 10 meters behind, there are people with a bunch of phone cards, giving that away for free, with signs saying in Ukrainian, where do you need to go? I will drive you to cities

who are hundreds of kilometers away. And they're really doing that. I talked with these people. Others are giving away sleeping bags or other things. I talked to a family that came with a big shopping cart and donated that to the Red Cross. I asked them, what do you have in that cart? And they said, yeah, we thought, imagine we would be refugees. What would we probably needed most. And so we bought a couple of sleeping bags,

a couple of blankets and water and food and some jackets and so on. And they donated that. So these are the heartwarming things where actually I love my job for exactly this. You know, and yeah, sorry, I'm getting a little emotional, not very professional in the dragon's den a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection Thank you. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.

I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast,

just search for Money for Couples. There are so many stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things to get Ukrainians out and help them once they've crossed into neighboring countries. And like Chris said, their governments are welcoming them with open arms. Poland has declared its border open to fleeing Ukrainians, even those who don't have passports. And Polish state railways have announced free travel for Ukrainians, even those who don't have passports. And Polish state railways have announced free travel for Ukrainians. Interestingly, though, this approach to refugees looks really different from what happened in Poland just a few months ago. In November, Belarus's president Alexander Lukashenko was accused by Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and the EU of pushing predominantly Muslim asylum seekers to the Poland-Belarus border

and promising them safe passage to the EU in a bid to pressure the European Union to lift sanctions against his government. Polish security forces responded with violence, beating them back with batons and letting many of them freeze to death. And now, a giant refugee camp forming on the border. In the last few months, nine people have died in these forests, mainly from hypothermia.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said his country was accepting all citizens and legal residents of Ukraine. He told journalists, everyone fleeing Ukraine will find a friend in the Hungarian state. This is the same politician who, in the mid-2010s,

during the Syrian migrant crisis, built barbed wire fences, armed a force of quote-unquote border hunters with pistols, batons and pepper spray and described mainly Muslim migrants as a Trojan horse for terrorism. Hungarian police clashed with migrants and refugees as they tried to force their way through. At the time, Prime Minister Viktor Orban insisted

he was protecting Europe's Christian heritage from Muslims. The European Union is now considering giving Ukrainian refugees temporary mass protection for up to three years, which means they'll be able to work legally and access social services. That's something they never did in 2015 and 2016 as asylum seekers made their way to Europe, fleeing the wars in Iraq and Syria. Why don't you stay in your country and fight the woman in the white top shouts in disgust. What did you expect? I expect that I heard about Europeans, they have hearts. But when I see this, I actually don't have hearts.

The European Union has taken in more than a million Syrian refugees. More than half of them were taken in by Germany alone. More than half of them were taken in by Germany alone. But there are still millions of Syrians who were uprooted by the conflict, living in refugee camps and tent settlements in countries like Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. Many were denied entry into Europe or died in the attempt to get in. You can hear echoes of this, the difference in how these refugees are viewed in some of the ongoing media coverage of the Ukrainian refugee crisis.

I'm sorry, it's very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed, children being killed. But this isn't a place, with all due respect, you know, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. You know, this is a relatively civilized, relatively European, I have to choose those words carefully too, city where you wouldn't expect that or hope that it's going to happen. This is not a developing third world nation. This is Europe. The UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi,

has admitted that some non-European refugees have faced racism as they've tried to flee Ukraine. He said these aren't state policies, but there have been instances of it. This is after these reports had been dismissed online as Russian disinformation. Africans and Asians, including students who had been going to school in Ukraine, have been speaking out about being forced to wait at various checkpoints by border guards while Ukrainians were allowed through no questions asked. Man, these people left without taking the blocks, man. None of the blocks, man.

It seems that there's a hierarchy of Ukrainians first, Indians second, Africans last. So there has been a lot of segregation in that sense. And then amongst the community... One of those students is Ruby, a 25-year-old from India who'd been studying in Kyiv. We talked to her after she crossed into Poland. We stood two days in one of the borders and we walked 30 kilometers. And you know what they said? If Indians, you cannot cross the border. One person there in a Polish border, they said you cannot cross the border. person there in a polish border they said you cannot cross the yes and we you know walked 30 kilometers and the guys are saying this thing their time was

night 11 o'clock we don't have any transportation we don't have any commutation accessibility no one is there to help us and we are are just like as helpless. No one is, you know, giving lift just because of language barrier. No one is helping us. We are staying there in a forest. And next day, again, we buy one more taxi and come to this Poland-Poly border. On the second attempt, Ruby did manage to cross the border. But things haven't gotten any easier or necessarily safer. There have been reports of Polish neo-Nazi groups chasing refugees once they've gotten across and telling them to go back to Ukraine. Now we again are requesting them, Poland people, please, please, please help us to provide

one transportation. And they said this transportation is free only for the Ukrainian people, not for you Indians, not for you Bangladesh people. We are also the part of that Ukraine, but they guys are not providing any of the transportation to us. We are getting money from the India and calling our parents to fetch more and more money. No one is helping to the Indians that much as they are helping Ukrainians. It's OK, they guys are also suffering, but we are also suffering

because we don't have any family member or anyone here. Back on the Ukrainian side of the border, it's not just that non-white refugees are being told to wait while Ukrainians are given priority. There have also been videos of Ukrainian border guards using violence to hold them back. We are children. We are children. We are children. Ahmed, who you met earlier, said he didn't experience it himself while trying to cross the border, but he saw it happen to others.

No one will ever see what has actually happened at those borders but he saw it happen to others. towards black people and towards Indian people, it has been completely atrocious. It is basically to get from Ukraine to Poland. There is exactly four checkpoints that you have to go through. And at every single one, I promise you, the Indians were always last with the black people, with the Nigerians, with everyone. Me being, I'm from Africa, but I'm not black. So maybe they regarded me as maybe being from Europe. I will definitely tell you there was even certain times at the border I didn't deserve to go through, but they put me through.

Example, I waited at one border eight hours. And I was sitting and thinking, wow, this is insane. How am I waiting at this border 8 hours and I was sitting and thinking wow this is insane how am I waiting at this border 8 hours and when I got through I met another guy and he was a black guy and he told me I'm waiting at this thing 16 hours no sleep so he's waiting double than me and

there's two things two factors that go head to head is that the Ukrainian soldiers will never explain what happened and people who have witnessed it have so much PTSD. They are so traumatized that they will never be able to articulate really what has happened. And it's not just Ukrainian border guards who are being accused of discrimination. Chris Melzer, the UNHCR spokesman we talked to earlier, said the agency has been investigating allegations of racism

on the Polish side of the border too. We heard of this case for the first time three days ago. And we went to different facilities at the border and we confronted the border guards with these cases. And we were indeed in a room that was not very big. I would say normally it would fit probably 50 persons, and there were about 150. And some of the people told us they were there for 24 hours and even more. We asked the border guards what the problem was. And by the way, all of them were, let's say, non-European, so darker than the average Ukrainian. And there were no Ukrainian

citizens. And we asked the border guards, what's the problem here? And they said, all of these people have no documents, have no passports, or at least no valid passport or something. And that's why we keep them here to find out who the people really are. We said, yeah, okay, fair enough. But the big question is, what is this person? Let's say it's a Norwegian or a Canadian or an American. Would you handle the case in the same way? And they said, yeah, but we didn't have such a case. Our stand of UNHCR is that indeed, probably there will be always more Syrians in Turkey and in Lebanon than in Poland or in Slovakia or in Hungary or something like that. And let me tell you, what I see here in

Ukraine is actually the same thing I saw last year in Tigray, what I saw two years ago and three years ago in Bangladesh, what I saw six or seven years ago in Cote d'Ivoire, families have to flee, the fathers sometimes dead, mothers with their children, and so on. It's the same picture. And this depresses me. A refugee is a refugee, period. A refugee is not a migrant, and there are no better or worse or first class and second class refugees. A refugee is a refugee, period. On the other hand, I also see the same solidarity in Bangladesh and in Ethiopia and now in Poland. And that keeps me up.

More than half a million refugees have already escaped to Poland, More than half a million refugees have already escaped to Poland, while tens of thousands of others have made their way into Hungary, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia. Most are women and children. Ukraine has conscripted men between the ages of 18 and 60, so they haven't been able to leave. A growing number of the children are unaccompanied, and those numbers are rising every hour. children are unaccompanied. And those numbers are rising every hour. While these countries are managing to handle the incoming people so far, with the crisis ballooning, they're going to need more money and more resources to keep up. And in the coming weeks, the UN has projected that neighboring countries could expect to receive 4 million Ukrainian refugees. And we are going to keep watching as this crisis unfolds. And that's all for this week.

You've been listening to Nothing is Foreign. Our producer is Joyta Szengupta. Our sound designer is Graham McDonald. And our showrunner is Adrian Chung. I want to give a big heartfelt thanks to our fixer on the Polish-Ukrainian border, Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska, and to Sarah Sinkarova, who's been reporting on this from the Slovak-Ukrainian border. Dubbed translations are by Melly Gamush and Samira Moheddin. Nothing is Foreign is a co-production of CBC News and CBC Podcasts.

Willow Smith is our senior producer and Nick McKay-Blokos is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Joseph Shabison. Thank you so much for listening. And I will talk to you back here next week.