Ukraine Crisis
Europe faces large-scale refugee crisis
Europe is facing its biggest refugee crisis in years as Ukrainian civilians flock to neighbouring countries to escape Russian aggression
But some have expressed concern over the treatment of refugees deemed to be people of colour, with reports of widespread discrimination.
There are now over 800,000 refugees that have fled Ukraine with some predicting that this number could rise to 4 million.
The European Union has relaxed its normally stringent border rules, assuring that they are accepting refugees with open arms.
Neighbouring countries to the West of Ukraine have bared the brunt of this influx, including Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Moldova.
The majority have headed to Poland with nearly half a million seeking refuge there.
But there has been some criticism aimed at these countries.
There are reports that some African citizens are being denied access to safety and are largely being discriminated against at train stations and border posts.
Ukraine has a large number of international students and workers, thousands of them being African.
The UN Refugee agency has even urged authorities in countries neighbouring Ukraine to open their borders to African citizens fleeing the conflict.
The African Union has expressed how disturbed they are by these reports.
Ukraine has responded to this alleged discrimination, the country’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted that an emergency hotline has been established for African, Asian and other students wishing to leave Ukraine because of Russia’s invasion.
They also said they are working intensively to ensure their safety and speed up their passage.
Witnesses in Poland have reported seeing refugees who looked to be people of colour being harassed by who appeared to be self-identified right-wing nationalists in the city bordering Ukraine.
According to The United Nations Human Rights Council, anyone who looked to be African or Arab was targeted at the city’s train station, where thousands of refugees were passing through.
One reporter says extremists were shouting at these people telling them to get out of the country and even physically assaulting them.
Some discrimination has been expressed by people in politics and even in the media as well.
Discrimination expressed in the media
Bulgaria’s Prime Minister, Kiril Petkov, addressed Ukrainian refugees and even told journalists earlier in the week that “these are not the refugees we are used to, these people are Europeans”.
He said these refugees are intelligent, they are educated people and that this is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists.
This sort of sentiment has been seen in media reports.
One reporter from CBS News says in comparison to Middle Eastern and African countries, Ukraine is a relatively civilised nation.
The reporter later apologised for any offence he caused and said he should never have compared conflicts in the first place.
One Al Jazeera English presenter was also caught making similar statements, pinpointing the uniqueness of the refugee crisis being that most are what he called middle-class people.
Many people have raised concerns about the racism and Islamaphobia now being widely expressed.
Some of these countries had tough anti-immigration laws and are suddenly allowing a large number of refugees into their countries.
The EU has announced that refugees will have the right to live and work in European countries for up to three years.
This was announced by the European Commission’s president Ursula Von der Leyen under the new emergency plan in response to what is Europe’s biggest refugee crisis this century.
Savannah Pocock contributed to this report