Panama - Non-whites encounter racism during evacuation of Ukraine

AFP, - Lviv, Ukraine In front of the Lviv station, Jean-Jacques does not hide his anger. Like thousands of other students from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, the Congolese wants to flee Ukraine, but the border guards of the country at war prevent him.

Jean-Jacques Kabeya arrived at the Shegyni border post on Sunday night, where he hoped to enter Poland after fleeing Russian bombing in Kharkov, in eastern Ukrainian territory. After several days of traveling in the cold, without help, and almost without sleep, the pharmacy student ran into the refusal of the border agents.

“They told me: 'You will stay here, you flee from the war, stay here, you will fight with us. You can't leave, especially you black people,' the 30-year-old explained to AFP.

After 36 hours of fruitless waiting, Jean-Jacques returned Tuesday morning to Lviv, the main city in western Ukraine, where thousands of Ukrainians and foreigners were waiting to board one of the few trains to flee the country.

'It's catastrophic!' he says. In recent days there have been numerous testimonials like his among foreign students in Ukraine, a country known for the accessibility and quality of its higher education.

The African Union declared itself 'concerned' on Monday about the potentially 'racist' way in which Africans trying to escape from Ukraine are treated, even though some African countries announced that their fellow citizens managed to leave the country at war.

Four nights below zero
Shivering with cold, several hundred of these students waited in single file in their hats and anoraks on the avenue leading to the Shegyni border post. Pakistani, Indian, Algerian, Congolese, Cameroonian or Ghanaian by nationality, many of them spent up to four nights waiting resignedly under freezing temperatures, from -5 to -10°C.

On the right side of the avenue is the line of foreigners, while on the left the line of Ukrainians moves more smoothly, especially with women and children, since men between 18 and 60 years old are forced to stay in the country to fight.

“We all have papers”, but“because we are foreigners, they treat us like dogs (...) and the Ukrainians don't care”, laments Mesum Ahmed, 23, a Pakistani computer science student.

”You see well the difference between them and us. We are black and that is why this happens to us”, laments a young Nigerian.

About thirty Cameroonian students, who fled from Kirovograd say that in recent days 'they discovered racism in Ukraine”.

'In stations or trains, we were systematically deprived of sitting places,' criticizes Bryan Famini, 22, an economics student.

”Some Ukrainians even laughed at us when they saw us walking. I have been disappointed in this country, I will not return”, says Ghislain Weledji, 22.

Contacted by AFP, the border guard services deny 'any difficulty' and assure that 'no one will be prevented from leaving Ukraine'.

The Polish authorities also stated that they take in anyone fleeing the conflict in the neighboring state. Six days after the start of the Russian invasion, more than 677,000 people left the Ukrainian territory in search of refuge in other Eastern European countries, according to UN data.

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