An international humanitarian organization teamed up with the Romanian Orthodox Church to house hundreds of Ukrainian refugees in a Romanian office building.
In Romania, an office building has been converted by evangelical Christian humanitarian aid, development, and advocacy organization World Vision and the Romanian Orthodox Church in response to the wave of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion for more than a month now. World Vision CEO Edgar Sandoval recently flew to Sandoval to assess the organization's humanitarian efforts to assist Ukrainian refugees who were forced out of their homes after Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine in February.
According to the Christian Post, Sandoval underscored the "generosity of the Romanian community" despite the challenges that came with providing food and shelter for the hundreds, if not thousands of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war-torn country and finding themselves in neighboring Romania.
The World Vision CEO recounted how he visited the Romanian city of Iasi, where an "office building that had been completely refurbished into a shelter and everything inside the shelter had been provided by the community." He added how the shelter had "everything from beds, mattresses, sheets, blankets, pillows [and] toys" all provided by the "generosity of the community."
Sandoval reported that the office space could accommodate up to 450 refugees per night, but that they "also need to continue to pay for the electricity." This is where World Vision came in, as he said the humanitarian organization has been "partnering alongside them by providing the utilities, hygiene kits, laundry and shower facilities."
Sandoval remarked that in light of the massive number of people fleeing the war-stricken Ukraine, "this has become...the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II." The Associated Press reported that the number of refugees that have poured out of Ukraine nears four million amidst Ukraine's pre-war population of 44 million.
The World Vision CEO recounted how he visited two border points in Moldova and Ukraine, where he witnessed "strings of people coming through, some of them walking, some of them with nothing but the clothes on their back, some with a suitcase." In the border crossing in the town of Siret, Sandoval saw 15,000 come through, lamenting that the situation "continues to get worse as the conflict increases."
The World Vision leader explained that most Ukrainian refugees are "in transit," as they are mostly headed to Western Europe. Sandoval added that Ukrainian refugees stop in Romania along the way to rest and seek shelter, adding that the "vast majority" of refugees are women and very young children, which is why World Vision is striving to create "child-friendly spaces" in refugee centers "to mitigate any sort of psychosocial effects that the conflict may have" on the children.
World Vision intends to ramp up its response to the Ukraine-Russia conflict by establishing support in Moldova and Poland and continue their operations in Romania. The organization has raised more then $8 million for the Ukraine crisis thus far.
Meanwhile, Anna Michalska, a spokeswoman for the Polish border guards, explained that the surge of refugees may not come to an end soon, as a number of those left in Ukraine are waiting it out, determining if their cities will be attacked by Russian forces. She said, "We cannot exclude that there will be more waves of refugees in the future."
