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The number of refugees fleeing Ukraine has surpassed one million since the Russians invaded twelve days ago. And as the ‘blatant campaign of terror’ unfolds in front of our eyes, played out in real time on our TV sets and social media feeds, I’m sure many of you, like myself, are having difficulty looking away.
The images are heartbreaking: innocent victims of war, often frightened woman, children and the elderly, seeking safety in makeshift bomb shelters or on cold subway floors.
People gather in a subway being used as a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Efrem Lukatsky / Wojciech Grzedzinski)
A woman from Ukraine sits with her dog at a train station that was turned into an accommodation centre in Przemysl, Poland. (Petr David Josek / The Associated Press)
Equally upsetting is the footage of frightened young families lugging suitcases, rolled-up blankets and small, helpless children onto trains destined for neighbouring border crossings.
People fleeing the conflict from neighbouring Ukraine arrive at the border crossing in Medyka, southeastern Poland. (Czarek Sokolowski / The Associated Press)
And so last week, perhaps as a respite from it all, I spent a couple of hours perusing the Free Press image database for news on the oft-forgotten victims of war.
After all, I’m sure I’m not the only one agonizing over the whereabouts and well-being of dogs, cats and all the non-human creatures living freely or in captivity in Ukraine.
A dog howls outside a shop during shelling in Shchastia, in the Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine. (Vadim Ghirda / Associated Press)
The images are saddening, and even though there are reports that a number of animals were evacuated to Poland from a Kyiv zoo last week, I still worry about the millions of other powerless pets left behind.
Displaced Ukrainians seek to leave the capital city at Kyiv central train station in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Erin Trieb / Bloomberg)
One dog owner who arrived in Hungary from a city in western Ukraine said last week that he can’t leave without his dog.
People fleeing the conflict from neighbouring Ukraine arrive to Przemysl train station in Przemysl, Poland. (Petr David Josek / The Associated Press)
Another man, an animal rescue owner from Italy, said he would rather die than abandon the 400 animals in his shelter in Kyiv.
I would do the same if faced with a choice to leave my beloved pooches behind. But an option I have here is to aid worldwide organizations like PETAUK and the International Fund for Animal Welfare that continue to offer support to shelters and helpless animals that are left behind in that war-torn country.
Dogs peer out an apartment window, broken during shelling, in Horlivka, in the territory controlled by pro-Russian militants, eastern Ukraine (Alexei Alexandrov / The Associated Press)
Leesa Dahl
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