Timeline
The Russian war of aggression in Ukraine has been going on for two months and peace is still not in sight. However, more and more war refugees – also in Upper Austria – are considering returning to Ukraine. Currently 6,500 have found refuge in Upper Austria.
26.04.2022 06.33
Online since today, 6:33 am
The war changed everything, turned his whole life upside down: Daria Stiesova couldn’t have imagined that in her worst nightmares. She had to leave her husband behind and found refuge with her four children in Dorf an der Pram in the Innviertel. The 31-year-old primary school teacher wants to return to her husband and her old life: “It’s all very difficult, almost unbearable. We would like to leave today. But now the struggle has intensified again. We still have to stay here – probably until mid-May. We are very grateful for the help.”
Stiesova and her children are from Zaporizhia, in southeastern Ukraine. The city is about a three-hour drive from Mariupol and is subject to constant attacks: “Our neighbor’s house was completely destroyed by a rocket. That was so horrible. Then we fled immediately.”
“We really want to come back, this is our home”
It will be a return to the unknown, also for Olena Ilchenko, who currently lives in Gaflenz. The 47-year-old woman fled Konotop, in the north of the country, with her daughter and her 82-year-old blind father, shortly before the city was taken over by the Russians. She doesn’t know what happened to her beauty salon: “My house was destroyed, I don’t have a job anymore. We don’t know how to proceed. But we definitely want to go back. It’s our house.”
Fear of losing a job in Ukraine
More and more people looking for protection want to come back because they can’t find work here and financial help has been coming for a long time. Others fear for their jobs at home, like Olena Aleksandrovych, who has lived with her sister Tanja in Steinhaus near Wels for two months: “I want to go home. It’s quieter in western Ukraine. You can hear where we live hits again and again, but not as bad as in the east. We want to try,” Aleksandrovych said, even as fears of Russian attacks run deep.