on: Fleeing to Chernobyl
Why would you flee to a place that people have fled from? I read a story this morning following a single mother living in the Ukraine that did just that.
Maryna and her two daughters were living in the eastern region of Ukraine (very close to Russia) in the middle of the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian military. The conflict started in 2014 and continues through to present day. Day after day, Maryna was forced to hide her family away from the firing occurring directly outside their home. Each morning, they “enjoyed” a few hours of ceasefire, but otherwise, they would have been aware of the endless shelling outside.
Whilst walking home from school, Maryna’s daughters were caught in the firing, hardly surviving except for a shopkeeper’s brave actions.
Can you imagine? Hearing firing outside your house nearly 24 hours a day. Your children walking through the door in tears as they recount how they nearly lost their lives. Feeling desperately torn about how to act. If to act.
Maryna acted. She fled hundreds of miles to live a mere 30km from the Chernobyl exclusion zone. She fled to a place that had been evacuated only a little over 20 years prior.
Chernobyl is known by many due to the recent film recounting the nuclear disaster that occurred in 1986. The film is incredible. Haunting. Revealing. Radiation gushed into the air and drifted through Europe. 116,000 people were forced to leave immediately to avoid the toxicity of the radiation. 234,000 eventually were removed as well. Chernobyl, and its surrounding villages have become ghost towns due to the illegality of living in them.
And yet. This seems to have been Maryna’s only option as her income from the state was all she was surviving on. The outskirts of Chernobyl have become their home. She braved the threat of underground radiation to avoid the greater threat of civil war.
To flee.
To be forced to leave all you know at a moment’s notice. All your possessions. Memories. Comforts. Livelihood. Stripped away without warning. Maryana fled. Residents of Chernobyl fled. And millions of other have fled.
In 2019, it was reported that 70 million people around the war had been displaced by “war, persecution, and conflict”. 70 million Maryanas. 70 million people fighting to live. With no other option. They flee or they die.
As I sit with that uncomfortable statistic, my mind throbs with the fact that we would consider turning them away.
If I had to flee my home from fear of myself, but more importantly – my children – being killed. I would be utterly dependent on being accepted in another place. Pleading to be accepted. Pleading to be rescued. And yet turned away because an economy couldn’t handle me. Citizens couldn’t imagine sacrificing for me.
Unbelievable.
Immigration is not a straight-forward issue. I am not pretending it is. But 70 million isn’t just a number. 70 million faces. 70 million breathing human beings. All fleeing in to live.