MAR 3, 2022
'I Don't Want To Be A Refugee, I Want To Go Home': The Stories Of The Ukrainian Women Who Had To Flee (rferl.org)
PRAGUE -- "This is where I live. This is what my town looks like now," Olha Drahan says, as she points to her phone screen.
Visibly shaken, she flips through photos of Bila Tserkva, a town some 80 kilometers south of the capital, Kyiv, where many houses and streets have been reduced to rubble by the Russian bombardment.
[...]
Drahan, 43, is now one of dozens of Ukrainian women and children being housed in a dormitory normally used for youth players of Slavia Prague, which along with Prague natural-gas concern, Prazska Plynarenska, is footing the bill.
With her 13-year-old daughter and sister, Drahan says she left her apartment in Bila Tserkva on February 27 on a three-day odyssey, trudging across muddy terrain, traveling on trains, and in private cars.
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"The trip from Korczowa, on the Polish border, to Prague, took 14 hours. And it was expensive. My sister and I paid $300," Drahan says, adding that all she took was a small suitcase with documents and the bare necessities.
Her husband and elderly mother remain in Bila Tservkva. "I talked with them earlier today," she says. "And they are both safe."
Ukrainian refugees apply for residence permits at Prague's foreigner's police headquarters on March 2.
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Like many others in Ukraine, Drahan has ties to Russia, including a sister in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, and a brother in Chita, Siberia.
"They couldn't believe what was happening [in Bila Tservkva]. I had to send them photos to convince them," Drahan explains, underscoring the information vacuum many face in Russia, where state-run media have portrayed Ukraine as the aggressor and whitewash or ignore Moscow's brutal assault.
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Over 7,600 people have been
arrested in 121 cities in Russia since the start of the Russian attack on February 24, according to data collected by the human rights organization OVD-Info.
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"I don't want to be a refugee," says Sichova, an auto insurance agent just a few weeks ago.
"I want to work. I want to go home."