Gus Epam angrily recalls how he and his comrades had to leave a restaurant just because of the color of their skin last March. Located in Poland near the border with Belarus, they feared for their safety due to the type of clientele frequenting the premises. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. “In Poland, Ukraine and other neighboring countries there are some sections of the population that have a racist bias and are aggressive towards immigration,” he laments.
It is precisely this problem that prompted the members of Uhuru, the Valencian anti-racist association in which Epam works, to form the first racist and anti-racist caravan that left on March 31 for Medyka, the border crossing point with the largest influx of refugees from Poland.
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From Medyka, Ana Isabel Martínez, an activist in the field of flight and migration, tells of the hell in which racialized people live. “The borders were closed based on skin color, nationality or amount of money in the pocket.” The caravan project consisted of two expeditions, one from Valencia and an Afro-descendant to Medyka and one from Malaga and a gypsy, whose main performance took place at the border with Romania . “It’s the first time in history that black people and gypsies have come together on the front lines of a humanitarian action of this caliber, which makes our initiative historical in nature,” he stresses.
Lamar Bailey and Gus Epam, volunteers from Uhuru, a Valencian anti-racist association.
The aim is to help people who are discriminated against in humanitarian corridors, who face greater obstacles in managing their documents and who are less well received due to racial segregation. “If we look at other conflicts, we immediately see that refugees from these countries who are not blond and blue-eyed have many problems starting and leading a normal life in the country of residence even after many years. We want all refugees to receive the same treatment and the same reception mechanism,” explains Martínez.
People of color have encountered numerous obstacles in escaping Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion. “The first border they have to cross is the Ukrainian population itself, who have not been given the opportunity to leave the country,” says the activist.
Easier evacuation routes were also not an option for these people, who had to walk for kilometers for fear of being beaten and were expelled from the trains towards the border. The problem doesn’t end here. “When they arrived at the border, the Polish authorities also made it very difficult for them. Later, after this second refusal, they realize that there is already a clear racist threat in Poland, so the fact of entering this country is not even a guarantee of security.
This is the case of Chris, a Nigerian student who was in Kyiv when the conflict broke out and had to overcome several difficulties to get to safety. “First I went to Lviv because there are train connections to other countries there, but when I got there, racism was widespread: Ukrainians didn’t let people of other nationalities on the trains,” says the young man remembered how they were dragged off trains because they all wanted to flee first. “I spent the night in a hotel and took the bus to the Polish border the next day, but there was so much traffic that I had to get off and walk nine hours to the border crossing. There, too, they only allowed Ukrainian citizens to cross,” he adds.
After waiting another two days at the border for his turn, Chris had to return to Lviv to find a new escape route. “At the station I found an almost empty train and they told me that it was going to a town near Hungary. I decided to try my luck at crossing this border and managed to escape after eight days of trying,” he laments.
“It’s the first time in history that blacks and gypsies have come together on the front lines of a humanitarian effort of this caliber”
Ana Isabel Martínez, activist
The activists were assisted in their work by the militant group Grupa Granica, a Polish-based group whose work since the conflict began has focused on helping racialized people escape. “Thanks to them, many have been saved. Specifically, at the beginning of April we tried to help a family on the Belarusian border. They had a little boy and were in the forest melting snow so they could drink water,” Epam says. “They had no food and the situation was very critical, but we could not reach them to help, precisely because of the prevailing racism in the area. As people of color, they didn’t make it easy for us, but from Grupa Granica they managed to reach out and help them,” she adds.
Already in January 2022 – before the conflict – MSF denounced the situation that many refugees lived in the forest area between Poland and Belarus, where trapped people in need of medical and humanitarian assistance lived and where they were exposed to sub-zero temperatures.
The humanitarian aid provided by this caravan not only stopped helping racialized people, but they also managed to contribute with materials and raising funds, among other things. “It seems crazy to us to get there with a van and fill it with people without knowing what you will do with them when you arrive in Spain. We contributed in the most practical and realistic way we know how,” says Epam.
Pacifier, first necessity
In addition to the massive humanitarian aid Ukraine received, the Uhuru collective noted a significant shortage of baby supplies at hospitals and border crossings. According to Epam, nobody brought products for newborns, especially food and pacifiers. “It may seem like a small thing, but the truth is that babies relieve a lot of stress by suckling.”
In fact, one of the problems with bombings is that loud noises create enormous stress in young children, an uneasiness that spreads to everyone who lives with them and that therefore has a very negative impact on the mental health of the population. “We donated a few hundred euros to a children’s hospital in Lviv because several deliveries of materials had failed and they were desperate,” he continues. “We got to work immediately and raised a thousand euros, which we spent entirely on children’s items such as clothing, food, medicine and pacifiers.”
A large part of the donations Uhuru raised went to the Medyka border crossing itself, to the tent of the NGO Humanity First International, where many Ukrainian mothers arrive exhausted and without means to care for their babies. Here you will find everything from milk powder to carts. “We’re very proud to have helped with something that was really needed and that hardly anyone had noticed before,” says Epam.
The hell of African students in Ukraine
Added to this are the students that Ukraine accepts every year on the basis of agreements with various African countries to conduct university studies. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science, more than 80,000 international students, including those from Nigeria, Cameroon and Tanzania, were educated in the country in 2020. Some of them decide to stay and formalize Ukrainian citizenship, others return to their countries of origin.
Various media outlets have collected testimonies about how his departure from the country was a real hell due to racial discrimination. Many of them had come to Ukraine to obtain university degrees with great recognition and at an affordable price. The Russian invasion not only forced them to abandon their academic goals, but also left them in a situation of real helplessness.
The empathy of other Afro descendants helps many of these young people find relative stability in their escape process. Such is the case with the project of Yuga, a man from the Republic of Congo and residing in Kraków. At the beginning of the war he decided to take in students, help them and make sure they received the treatment they needed to reach a safe area. During the month of May, it provided accommodation for fifty of them and also provided them with legal advice so that they could process the refugee status documents required by the European Union or continue their studies. Uhuru Valencia collects donations for her project.
Organizations such as Amnesty International accuse the Ukrainian government of failing to meet its national and international obligations, for example by being reluctant to admit racism in the country and racist criteria used by state officials during selective controls.
Other civil groups point out that the reception of Ukrainian refugees in Europe demonstrates the continent’s ability to prevent fatalities by establishing safe humanitarian corridors. Hundreds of organizations have founded the “Coordination of Aid to the People of Ukraine and Forgotten Peoples”. Signatories include Uhuru, Amnesty International, Red SOS Refugiados Europa and Refugees Welcome. There are currently open aid projects in Afghanistan or refugee camps in Greece via this network.
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