Anastasia Laurikova knew she had to leave Kharkiv the day a 13-year-old boy was killed by a Russian missile near her home. She has been desperate to leave Ukraine since the war began in February, but lives with her 60-year-old mother, Irena, who had refused to go. She had had enough of the bombing, and Ms. Laurikova took them on a train to Poland two weeks ago. “I don’t feel safe in my country anymore,” said Ms. Laurikova, 34, as she stood outside a refugee shelter on the outskirts of Przemysl, a small Polish town about 10 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. “Something happened in my head and I had to leave.” Anastasia Laurikova left Kharkiv in Poland with her mother, Irena. He worries that too many refugees have already come to Poland and are planning to go to Germany. He worries that he has left it too late and that because so many Ukrainians have entered Poland, the country’s support services will be stretched and the best housing and jobs will be taken. “These people will have more opportunities because they came earlier,” he said. It’s a valid concern. As the war reaches its six-month end on August 24, the refugee crisis has changed dramatically and much of the early support has disappeared. The number of Ukrainians fleeing their country has fallen sharply and there is no longer a global sense of urgency. On the Polish-Ukrainian border near Przemysl, refugees are rare and more people head to Poland to shop. But aid workers say the situation could change quickly if fighting intensifies or Ukraine faces a brutal winter. And they worry there won’t be the same outpouring of support as there was six months ago. If Ms Laurikova had arrived at this haven in an empty Tesco store at the end of February, she would have marveled at the activity. Dozens of buses and trucks lined up to transport refugees to cities across Europe for free, and hundreds of volunteers were ready to help. The shelter was so full of people dropping off food and clothing that police officers had to direct traffic through the surrounding streets. Now, as she looked out into the empty parking lot, Ms. Laurikova was convinced that Poland had little to offer, and she and her mother planned to move to Germany, where they hoped there was more help. Six months ago, the area around a shelter in an empty Tesco store on the outskirts of Przemysl was filled with volunteers offering hot food, clothes and other essentials. Now it’s empty. There is no doubt that the demand for shelter spaces has plummeted. The number of Ukrainians arriving in Poland has dropped from about 200,000 a day in late February to 24,000, and almost as many are returning to Ukraine. And yet, there are still thousands of refugees living in shelters across Poland. The Tesco store hosts 200 Ukrainians. Warsaw’s Expo mall is home to 3,300 and 400 refugees are living in a shelter in an empty office building in the city. Many stay for weeks or months, unable to find permanent housing in Poland’s overheated housing market. Some hold down full-time jobs and leave the shelter every morning for work. “There are people who are coming, not as fast, not as strongly as at the beginning, but they are still coming and I know there is also a need to find a place for them,” said Marianna Ossolinska, a volunteer at the Catholic Intelligentsia Club. , a Polish charity that runs many programs for refugees. Mennonite heartland of Ukraine receives help from Canada as refugees flee Russia attacks near For the wife of the commander of the Azov regiment, a life is turned upside down as she faces uncertainty about the fate of her husband Poland has taken in nearly two million Ukrainians, and while initial public response was generous, interest has waned. In the first weeks of the war, 77 percent of Poles volunteered or gave money to refugee relief agencies, according to a study by the Polish Economic Institute. Donations totaled more than $2 billion, and thousands of Poles offered rooms in their homes to refugee families. By May, engagement had dropped to 39 percent, the study found. Fewer families are now willing to take in refugees and host families no longer receive a government subsidy. Most cities have also stopped allowing refugees to travel for free on public transport. “It appears that people are not willing to consistently help others who need support in the long term,” the researchers said. Iwona Warzynska, right, talks to a man at a shelter in Warsaw that houses 80 homeless men and 15 Ukrainian refugees, all women with children. The shelter is run by the Camillian Mission for Social Assistance. Iwona Warzynska is among those bucking the trend. He is cramming as many refugees as possible into a building outside Warsaw owned by the Camillian Social Assistance Mission. Before the war, Ms. Warzynska focused on providing housing for the homeless. Since February 24, it has released rooms for nearly 150 refugees, all women and children. Last week, 15 refugees were living with 80 homeless people and finding ways to support each other, he said. But the future is uncertain. Donations have dropped and Ms Warzynska worries about the homeless refugees she sees on the streets. “We have a lot of concerns, but we’re trying to be helpful,” he said. As the war enters the second half of the year, many charities are struggling to keep donors engaged. “The fatigue is obvious. There’s a lot going on in the world,” said Jose Andres, founder of World Central Kitchen, which has spent $300 million on emergency food programs in Ukraine and bordering countries, including Poland. WCK works with local restaurants and once had a huge presence in Przemysl. His colorful tents were everywhere and the charity built a kitchen that could cook 100,000 meals a day. The last tent closed this summer and the kitchen has gone dark. “We are short of funding because the money we spend is real. We spend one and a half to two million dollars every day and that’s a lot of money. And I have to evaluate,” Mr. Andres added in an interview in Kyiv. He said WCK pulled out of Przemysl because the number of refugees has decreased and he is confident the charity can grow if needed. But he worries about how aid agencies will react if the winter is as bad as many expect. “I say winter is coming and I try, behind the scenes, talking to the big players to say, ‘Hey, we either work more as a unit or there’s going to be a lot of holes,’” he said. The railway station in Przemysl was packed with thousands of refugees and volunteers arriving at the start of the war. Most of the international charities that rushed to Przemysl in February have left, and it’s hard to imagine now that this town of 60,000 was once the epicenter of the refugee crisis. At one point, almost every school and municipal building in the city was turned into a shelter or collection point, and the train station was so congested that employees put out makeshift beds. Today there are two shelters left – at Tesco and Ukraine House – and only a few volunteers remain at the train station. About 1,500 Ukrainians still arrive daily by train, including many from places like Mariupol, Kherson and Donbass. “These are people who not only saw war but also lost everything. their homes, their families,” said Tatiana Nakonieczna, a volunteer at the Ukraine House shelter that hosts 50 refugees. “Now, we have much more difficult situations than we had in the beginning.” There was also hope among many people in Przemysl that the Russian invasion would unify the city and end prejudice against Ukrainians dating back to World War II. “The first month was really a beautiful thing. I met a lot of people from Poland, from different countries who came here to help,” said Laura Skibinska, 19, who has Ukrainian roots and helps refugees at the train station. “At some point, it started not being such a popular topic. And everyone was sick of it and didn’t want to hear it.” Laura Skibinska, 19, has been volunteering to help Ukrainian refugees in Przemysl since the war began. He had high hopes that the city would unite behind the refugees, but that did not happen. Anna Grad-Mizgala, a community activist in Przemysl, has been helping a Ukrainian woman and her two daughters since March. The family returned to Ukraine last week and Ms Grad-Mizgala reflected on their friendship and the changing nature of the refugee crisis. Anna Grad-Mizgala, a local activist, organized a rally for Ukraine in the central square shortly after the war began. Only a few people showed up, but at the time she was convinced that attitudes could be changed. Now she is less optimistic. Przemysl is largely back to normal and some of the old behaviors have reappeared. “The city has changed,” Ms. Grad-Mizgala said last week as she sat in a cafe not far from the square. “But not as I dreamed.” He lives in the historic center of the city and hosted a Ukrainian mother and her daughters for months. They returned to Ukraine and she is not sure if she will start another family. But she is reminded of the crisis every time she hears someone dragging a suitcase across the cobblestones. “That clack, clack, clack of wheels. it is the sign of war for me,” he said. “That was the sound we heard every day in the beginning.” Ukraine celebrates its independence day on August 24, exactly six months since the invasion began. For Ukrainians like Faith Igogo it will be a tearful occasion. Originally from Nigeria, but lived…
