Source: EMMANUEL DUPARCQ / Getty
Desperate treatment of those fleeing Ukraine continues with recent news of African and other non-white refugees who fled Ukraine now being detained in Poland and Estonia. As recently reported by the Independent, an estimated “52 third-country nationals” were being detained in detention facilities in Poland.
A person identifying themselves as a polish official denied the claim on Twitter while simultaneously acknowledging the country possibly had “reason” to detain individuals. From the African students in the report, they were asked to sign documents they could not read and not provided resources to appeal detention decisions.
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Despite the EU protection directives that those fleeing the conflict should be admitted temporarily, disparities persist in treatment. As some European officials have tried to deny what is happening, I am reminded of the rush to dismiss the experiences of African refugees fleeing Ukraine in the early days of the invasion.
Watching the videos of Africans sharing what was happening to them on the ground in Ukraine was amazing. Several groups of people tried to leave at the outset of the Russian invasion but were told that Ukrainians should go first. Others were told they didn’t have the proper documents to enter neighboring countries or that they should fight for a country they didn’t belong to.
But what hit me the hardest was when I saw Black Americans declaring that they didn’t trust ANY of the videos being shared. With more than 10,000 Black international students being faced with fleeing a country they thought would afford them an education, it was unsettling to see the lack of compassion for their plight. I have tried to remain silent in the past and prefer to collect data so that numbers and statistics back my statements, but I couldn’t sit idly by this time around.
So I tweeted, “please do your best to find mainstream sources but DO NOT discredit those that are speaking on the ground. In this moment fam please don’t put us in further harm’s way because we are constantly dehumanized across this globe.”
Source: African Refugees Fleeing Ukraine Still Met With Skepticism
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