IT BEGINS: WARSAW-MEDYKA-KRAKOW

27 February, 2022

People at the Medyka border, waiting as we wander around, talk to people and get a feel for the lay of the land…

I was at home watching the war on TV with my girlfriend, Yuliya. She is Ukrainian so it was affecting her considerably. Her dad is also an ex-captain in the Ukraine army but had left 10 years back. However, he had just been called back to duty and so Yuliya was of course in hysterics. She is from a small town called Khmelnytskyi. All her family are still there and they were starting to panic as the war progressed.

During this moment it dawned on me that something had to be done. We couldn’t just sit on the couch. With the Ukrainian border only five hours away by car, I quickly envisaged numerous possible scenarios and then blurted out to Yuliya that I was off and going to the border to see what I could do. Yuliya being the adventurous and spontaneous type was of course up for it 100% and so we went...

We reached out to many rental car companies and they were kind enough to donate a free car for the kind act. We were off in a hurry and reached the Medyka border within five hours. My main trajectory at that point was to document via photography what was happening at the border and capture the deluge of refugees. I wanted to portray what was happening in the grim light that this was…

A woman waits at the Medyka border.

After shooting for a few hours, we engaged in a conversation with refugees and volunteers and developed more of an understanding and what was going on and what was needed. We noticed the plethora of people without transport, accommodation, etc. They had fled with no plans — and at this stage support was limited and very ad hoc.

We were approached by a group who needed help for a disabled Pakistani student who had spent nine hours walking to the Ukraine border, limping and in bad shape. He spent a further two days in the line to get processed to come through and we were connected with the guy and heard his story. We took him to the train station and then went straight back to the border to get amongst the commotion and offer our services.

Yulia (left) and Dan (right) with the Pakistani international student who had walked and waited three days before meeting us.

Yuliya and I had been exposed to what was possible and slowly started formulating a game plan. Yuliya, with her fluent Ukrainian, proved to be a godsend and we found two mums and a 12-year-old daughter. The daughter had spent 12 hours in the Ukrainian border line all by herself and finally made it through to be greeted by her mother and friend. We drove them to Krakow to be with family and said our goodbyes.

Pictured: Dan (left) and Yulia (second left) with the two women and 12-year-old who had crossed the border on her own to be reunited with her Mum before transport into to Krakow.

I’d put a shout out on Facebook for local friends to join us.

Mates in Australia saw this and wanted to help, so began putting together a fundraising campaign through Chuffed.org to help pay for fuel, future car rentals, and anything we could do to help people coordinating support at the borders.

You can help too. Please donate and share.

Next up: 28-FEB: KRAKOW- HREBENNE-KROSNO-WARSAW

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