Catholic Church in Poland Helps Thousands of Refugees Fleeing Ukraine | EWTN News Nightly

meanwhile russian president vladimir putin has agreed to send a delegation to engage in talks with ukrainian officials a meeting place however has not yet been arranged and in ukraine tensions and fear remain [Music] alarms sound for a second straight day in the capital city around 40 miles north fighting on the ground destroyed at least one bridge citizens are now leaving ukraine with many going to neighboring poland and joining us now from poland is evo bender ewtn manager of east central europe evo thank you so much for your time today great to see you uh as we noted many people as you know are fleeing ukraine right now and according to reports nearly 30 000 of those people crossed into poland just yesterday uh how is the church in poland helping with this situation what can you tell us well uh first of all you know there is uh a a tremendous outpour of uh of sympathy for for the ukrainians who are being under this uh vicious uh attack from russia all across the polish society and the church is is calling for accepting uh the refugees who are now lining up on the polish ukrainian border the line is now about 10 miles long and and also the uh the uh the church main charity arm caridas poland is uh conducting a a major fundraising drive to help the refugees and also all the uh all the churches in poland this sunday and on ash wednesday will uh will have collections for uh for the refugees so uh basically the doors of poland are open to uh to anyone who's fleeing this this this unprecedented aggression uh and in fact you don't even have a night have to have an id to cross the polish border right now if you're coming from war-torn ukraine yeah and as far as the refugees evo what are the needs uh or the anticipated needs i'm sure you know most people are coming over from ukraine bringing very little probably just what they're able to carry well of course they will need food they will need shelter in fact uh the train station closest to the ukrainian border has been now converted into a makeshift shelter with with uh cots on which uh you know uh tired people can uh can can rest uh and then uh uh they will go either to uh to you know uh areas where where refugees are to be housed or to meet with their family because let's not forget that uh already poland is home to about 1.5 million ukrainians who are here either as students or economic migrants or political refugees who fled after the first stage of the russian invasion back in 2014. eva what's the atmosphere so to speak in poland right now uh how are people feeling about you know what's happening you ukraine really right on your doorstep there in poland well in fact when the invasion uh uh began uh two cities that are very close to the polish border on the ukrainian sides were hit by uh by russian fires so so uh the war is very close to home and you know uh there is a feeling of apprehension uh i can't say that it's a fear a feeling of fear or panic but people are worried because uh you know this this conflict has a potential of of spilling over so uh so people are sort of on edge they are stocking up on supplies they're stocking up on on gas but but there's no panic and and the shelves in in supermarkets are are not empty eva we have probably less than a minute left but i'm wondering uh what else you would like people to know about you know what's transpiring right now in your region well you know i i think the the most important thing is that uh we are seeing a uh a very uh aggressive move from russia uh which is trying to reassert its uh dominance in the region we're we're looking at a basically a neo-soviet state that uh decided to uh to put aside any niceties and simply invade and take over their uh their neighbor and this is something that the the world has to say a very very strange strong no too well evo thank you so much for your time we appreciate it we're praying for ukrainians and everyone in the region including the polls thank you so much thank you very much you

Channel: EWTN

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Id: PMjzyKeeYiw

Length: 5min 26sec (326 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 25 2022