‘The war is not near the end’: Around 100 people per day arrive from Ukraine at Calgary airport | 24CA News

There’s been a surge of individuals coming to Calgary, fleeing the warfare in Ukraine, in accordance with employees on the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society (CCIS) — the first group serving to Ukrainians settle in Calgary since March 2022.

Hanna Vakhovska remembers the sound of bombing and feeling her residence shake on Feb. 24, 2022 — the day the warfare began in Ukraine.
She lived in an underground shelter for 10 days not understanding if she would get out alive.

“Every day in the shelter in Mariupol, when the bomb is coming to us, we thought maybe it’s just for two days and it will finish but it continues and continues and I can’t imagine how people are still in Ukraine right now,” stated Vakhovksa in Calgary on Saturday.

Vakhovska, her husband and sister have been dwelling in Calgary since October, after enduring an extended and typically harmful journey out of Mariupol and discovering non permanent shelter in three different nations in Europe.

She worries for her dad and mom and teenage siblings again residence close to Donetsk.

“After a big bombing, they every time told me ‘OK maybe we will apply for a visa for Ukrainians,’ but after a couple of days they say ‘no it’s OK, we stay in our native home,’” Vakhovska stated.

“Because they live under war since 2014 — it’s crazy to say — but they get used to living under bombing,”

In addition to working on the airport with CCIS, Vakhovska volunteered at a clothes donation occasion for Ukrainian ladies on Saturday.

“It’s hard. It doesn’t fix the sorrow that they have experienced, but hopefully I believe in the power of community enough that this will be a really positive day for them because they’ve gone through so much,” stated Kristen Klok, who partnered with the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society to host the occasion.

Klok donated designer gadgets and CCIS supplied the area the place the ladies and kids might have lunch.

In addition to procuring on the occasion, the ladies had an opportunity to socialize with different newcomers and construct new friendships.

Staff with CCIS say the necessity is nice for extra donated gadgets as a result of almost 100 folks per day are actually arriving on the Calgary airport from Ukraine.

Many are involved about when the Canadian non permanent resident program will finish, whereas others are giving up hope that the warfare will likely be over quickly.

“Many people are still devastated and they have no place to live and they stayed in Europe for a while and they cannot go back home,” stated Kateryna Bryzh, a program facilitator with CCIS.

“The war is not near the end, and we still have to remember that so that’s why people are coming — just to search a better life, to settle down somewhere because they cannot be in limbo.

“The need is huge because we have so many people who are coming,” Bryzh stated.

Vakhovska’s condominium that she and her husband simply purchased earlier than the warfare began is broken and anticipated to be demolished this spring.

Still, she stays grateful and infrequently wonders if the trauma she skilled previously yr has been a dream.

“Canada is a nice, safe place for us to start a new life from zero because we lost everything in Ukraine.

“Maybe I died in Mariupol and now everything is amazing. What is happened to me now — it’s like a miracle. Maybe I died and this is my second life.”

The non permanent resident visa program expires on the finish of March.

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