Exhausted Ukrainians say 'they've come from hell' – Offaly aid worker

“AS it got dark, and bitterly cold, I lost all count of the numbers of people I was seeing. The faces bore the same expressions – confusion, resignation, exhaustion, and for many, relief. They had finally made it.”
For five days, Clara-born aid worker Ronan Scully has been at the border post of Vysne Nemeche, a mountain village high up in the Carpathian mountains of Eastern Slovakia.
It’s the main border crossing between Slovakia and neighbouring Ukraine, and is located just three miles down the road from the western Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod.
A lifelong aid worker, Ronan Scully arrived in Ukraine with his organisation Self Help Africa, as part of the Irish Emergency Alliance and its response to the deteriorating crisis.
Within just days, the number of refugees flooding though the village had gone from several thousand each day of over 10,000 people a day, by the weekend.In the past week, Vysne Nemeche had been transformed.
Normally home to no more than 250 residents, the number had swelled to tens of thousands, as refugee tents, feeding stations and sleeping quarters were erected to meet the very basic needs of the exodus from Ukraine.
Ronan told the Tribune: “They arrived here in buses, trucks, cars and motorbikes, while many also got here on foot.“One woman that I spoke to, Maria, said that she had been walking for days. She had covered close to 100 miles, with her 11 year old daughter Tianna by her side.
“’We have come from hell, and we have arrived in heaven’, Maria told me.“People were patient. They were tired, afraid and understandably very emotional. As Maria said to me, they needed to escape,”
Ronan said.Most of the crowds who are in the village are women – mothers with their children, grandmothers, and many infants.The toddlers are in buggies or in their mothers' arms.
Most people are just carrying backpacks, large handbags or shopping bags.
Ronan explained: “There was a young boy, only 11 years of age, who walked by himself to the Slovakian border. His mother wrote the name of relatives in Slovakia on his arm and on his passport. Thankfully they were waiting for him when he crossed the border.”“I have seen very few men. Women that I’ve talked to say that their husbands, brothers or fathers had dropped them as close as they could to the border and had turned around, to return back home.
“Several women said that they were afraid that they might never see their partners again, as they were returning to the war.”Self Help Africa has teamed up with local charity Slovak Aid, to respond to the crisis , and as a part of the Irish Emergency Alliance has joined forces with six other Irish organisations – Action Aid, Christian Aid, Plan International, Tearfund, Trocaire and World Vision – to appeal for donations from the Irish public to support the Ukraine relief effort.Self Help Africa as part of the Gorta Group is also helping secure vital medical gear for a hospital in Ivano-Frankivsk, western Ukraine, which has been damaged during the conflict. Supplies include bandages, tourniquets, burn treatments and IV equipment.
As well as the helping people in Ukraine and those who have reached Slovakia, the Irish Emergency Alliance is helping refugees that have arrived in Poland, Hungary, Moldova and Romania.
Ronan added: “Funds that we raise from the Irish public will go to purchase essential supplies for the 2.4 million refugees that this conflict has already created, including food, blankets and emergency medical supplies.
”To support the life-saving work of the Irish Emergency Alliance, visit www.irishemergencyalliance.org or  www.selfhelpafrica.org or call 1800 939 979 or by texting IEA to 50300 to give €4