“In Kiev train stations, children first, women second, white men third, then the rest of the seats are taken by Africans. We waited many hours for the trains and couldn’t get in because of that.” In your bill on Twitter, a Nigerian student shares what it’s like to try to escape the Ukraine war as a black man.
“We had to yell and push African women onto the train so they had no choice but to let them in as they are prioritizing women and children,” he continues, in a post on Friday (25).
Two days later, already on the border with Poland, he continued to denounce what he calls a “racial hierarchy” in order to cross the border. “Look how they threaten to shoot us! The police and the army refused to let the Africans cross, they only let the Ukrainians. Some slept here for two days in this bitter cold, while others had to come back.”
With reports like these gathered by the hashtag #AfricansinUkraine (Africans in Ukraine), Africans and other black immigrants living in the country say they are being victims of racism when trying to move, being stopped on trains, buses and at the borders by guards or other citizens. Ukrainians.
In response, governments such as Nigeria’s issued communiqués saying they had been informed of such situations and condemned the discriminatory treatment. One of the videos shows a woman with a two-month-old baby on her lap, sitting on the floor in a temperature of 3°C, while an unidentified man claims she was unable to cross the border, like other women with children.
Another recording, by a British activist, shows a large number of young people, all black, outside a train. “The hidden face of this war is the racism experienced by many who are on the run.”
In another case, Jamaican Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson-Smith said on Twitter that 24 Jamaican students are being forced to walk 20 km to Poland after being prevented from boarding a bus carrying students to the border.
After managing to cross into Romania, a black British medical student tells, in a video, how she was received at the passport control sector on the Ukrainian exit. “It was Ukrainians first, Indians later, Africans last. There’s been a lot of segregation. It’s a very stressful situation.”
Brazilians also report episodes of discrimination. Futsal player Moreno Santiago told, in a video on Instagram, the saga he and two other friends went through to try to board a train in Kiev this Monday (28).
In the end, they ended up being pushed out by the train driver, with racist words. “He had agreed to take us, but out of nowhere he threw us out. He pushed David out, David got hurt. He didn’t want to take us anymore, when he saw that we are dark-skinned, that we had black together, he kept talking nonsense. , so it didn’t work”, he reported.
Besieged cities across Ukraine are home to tens of thousands of African students studying medicine, engineering and military affairs. Morocco, Nigeria and Egypt are among the top ten countries with foreign students in Ukraine, together providing more than 16,000 students, according to the Ministry of Education, quoted by Reuters. Thousands of Indian students are also trying to flee.
The government of Nigeria released a statement criticizing the episodes. “Unfortunately, there were reports of Ukrainian police and security forces refusing to let Nigerians board buses and trains bound for the Polish border,” wrote a presidential spokesman, Garba Shebu.
“In a video circulating widely on social media, a Nigerian mother with her baby was filmed being physically forced to give up her seat to someone else,” it continues.
He says there are also reports of Polish authorities denying Nigerians entry across the border with Ukraine and advocates that “everyone be treated with dignity and without privileges”.
The father of three, a Nigerian man who has lived in Ukraine since 2009, told The Independent newspaper that on Saturday he, family members and other migrants were forced to disembark from a bus about to cross the border. “No blacks”, the military would have said. “When I look into the eyes of those who are rejecting us, I see racism injected; they want to save themselves and are losing their humanity in the process,” he said.
Other African students told the British daily that they faced hostility in similar situations, including entering Poland.
According to Nigerian politician Femi Fan-Kayode, Poland and other European nations are allowing fleeing Ukrainians, Indians and Arabs to cross the border and take refuge in the country. “The only people blocking are black Africans and there are now hundreds of students stranded on the Polish border,” he, a former tourism minister, wrote on Twitter.
“Worst of all is the fact that the Ukrainians themselves are not allowing Africans to board the free trains they have provided for Ukrainians and other citizens to leave Ukraine and flee to Europe. There are reports that Ukrainian police boarded these free trains and removed all Africans, saying they had to stay, while allowing citizens of ALL other countries.”
According to the AFP news agency, Poland’s ambassador to Nigeria, Joanna Tarnawska, rejected the allegations of unfair treatment. “Everyone receives equal treatment. I can assure you that I have reports that some Nigerian citizens have already crossed the border into Poland,” she told local media.
She said that Nigerians have 15 days to leave Poland or make other arrangements and that even invalid documents were being accepted to cross the border. Pandemic restrictions, according to the ambassador, have also been lifted. According to the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as of Sunday (27) 130 Nigerians from Ukraine have arrived in Bucharest, 74 in Budapest and 52 in Warsaw – with another 23 being registered.
The government of Ghana also spoke out about its citizens in the country, saying it would meet with parents of students stranded in Ukraine and send embassy officials to border points to help them. Ivory Coast, which according to state media has 500 citizens in Ukraine, said it was also taking steps to carry out the withdrawal. Kenya’s Foreign Ministry said 201 nationals were in the country, most of them students.
