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As the war in Ukraine reaches its 12-month mark, Liubov, a mother with a small daughter, speaks about her year as a refugee in Budapest
Liubov, from Okhtyrka, near Kharkiv, left Ukraine on 28 February 2023. One year on she remains in Hungary, settled in Budapest's 8th district. As a single mother, she receives support through welfare payments and organisation donations.
Liubov Sergienko vividly remembers the day last year when, fleeing the outbreak of war in Ukraine, she crossed the border into Hungary, carrying her baby daughter Natalia in her arms.
Seeing a mural with a refugee mother and child on a building in Budapest brought it all back for Liubov, 42, from Okhtyrka, near Kharkiv. She was among onlookers when the mural, commissioned by UNHCR’s office in Hungary, was unveiled for World Refugee Day last June.
“It is so heartbreaking. I have tears in my eyes. I remember myself. We crossed the border the same way with her (Natalia) in our arms,” she told the UN Refugee Agency at the time, before slipping back into the crowd.
Liubov left Ukraine on 28 February 2022. With the one-year mark the war approaching, UNHCR connects with her again. She is still living in Budapest with Natalia, now two-and-a-half. We meet at the “Budapest Helps!” Info and Community Center, run jointly by UNHCR, IOM and the Budapest Municipality. Liubov knows the place; she’s brought Natalia to kids’ activities here before.
Life as a refugee is hard, especially if, like Liubov, you are aching for home. “We live,” she says in answer to the question of how she and Natalia are getting on in Budapest now.
They live in the city’s 8th district in a one-room flat, with help from UNHCR partner “From the Street into Home Association”. While Liubov receives welfare payments, it is difficult to survive on them and she depends on food banks. Additional help comes from volunteer groups such as the Ukrainian refugee-led Vamos Aid Foundation, which gave Liubov and her daughter winter coats.
Liubov is grateful for this support but it’s a far cry from the life she had back in Okhtyrka, where she had a house and her own business, selling children’s clothes. “The main thing is it is quiet and safe here,” she says about living in Hungary.
The war in Ukraine has triggered the biggest and fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War. Over eight million refugees, unable to return home, are relying on the assistance of host communities, including over 30,000 in Hungary.
As time goes on, and with the war and displacement continuing, refugees like Liubov and Natalia will need sustained support and solidarity. Many organizations, including UNHCR and its partners, are shifting their focus to helping refugees become more included in the host societies until they can safely go home.
Liubov is a full-time mother, unable to go out to work. But in Budapest she at least manages to attend language classes. She has free Hungarian lessons at the Reform Church three times a week and English lessons at the Evangelical Church twice a week. “I can understand a bit – ask where the black pepper is in the shop– but I can’t say much. The language barrier is difficult,” she says.
Liubov tries to stay positive. She has new Hungarian friends and has met up with an old neighbour from Ukraine. With her daughter, she walks in the City Park. “We like the hot air balloon and the musical garden,” she says.
But she is never far from tears. Friends in Ukraine have died. Every time her phone rings with a call from home, she fears bad news.
Liubov’s elder daughter, Angelika, 22, is completing her studies in criminology and could be called up to serve in the armed forces. Liubov’s first husband, still a friend, was at the front and is now lying wounded in hospital. “I miss them and worry about them,” she says.
Two months before the war broke out, Liubov had a bad feeling. “I closed my shop,” she says. “I’d had it for 10 years. I used to buy clothes wholesale from the Kharkiv market.”
She acted just in time. Okhtyrka, in Sumy oblast, was among the areas immediately struck by Russian missiles on the morning of 24 February 2022. “They were hitting the town centre. Our entire district was in flames,” says Liubov.
Neighbours offered her the relative safety of a cellar, but Liubov was packing up to go. She had one suitcase and a pushchair for Natalia. The elder daughter Angelika, who was staying behind, took them from Okhtyrka as far as Kotelva, an hour’s drive away.
“Riding out of Okhtyrka, we saw explosions; we saw people wounded,” says Liubov. “I was so frightened and desperate I thought the bombs were exploding right under our car.”
From Kotelva, Liubov was heading for Poland, a journey of over 1,000 km. She had been on the road two days when she got a call from Natalia’s father, a man called Yuri. He was already living in Budapest and promised to help if Natalia came to Hungary.
“So, the plans changed,” she says. “So much happened in those few short days. We made the last part of the journey by train to Hungary. We reached the border in the evening of 28 February. I crossed, carrying Natalia on one shoulder and the suitcase in the other hand. I felt numb. I’d left half of myself in Ukraine and now half of me was here in Hungary.”
Yuri helped them to get settled in Budapest. Liubov hopes Angelika might join her. Does Liubov imagine herself crossing the border back to Ukraine when peace comes?
“It is too early to draw that picture,” she says. “There are power cuts; for six hours no light, no heating, maybe no water. Unfortunately, after a whole year, the war is still going on.”
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