UKRAINE / KHARKIV DISPLACED

Kharkiv’s Stalin-era train station has become a hub for the internally displaced in Eastern Ukraine. Inside all the waiting room benches have been arranged in a corner for the exhausted travelers. At a row of desks volunteers, helped by UNHCR officials, offer advice and food. UNHCR

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:53
• Production Date: 18 September 2014
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES - UNHCR
• Subject Topical: REFUGEES; DISPLACED PERSONS
• Geographic Subject: UKRAINE
• MAMS Id: U140918d

Description

STORY: UKRAINE /KHARKIV DISPLACED
TRT: 2:53
SOURCE: UNHCR
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: RUSSIAN / ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 5 - 12 SEPTEMBER 2014, KHARKIV, KIEV, UKRAINE

Shotlist

1. Wide shot, exterior Kharkiv train station
2. Wide shot, interior Kharkiv train station with IDPs
3. Various shots, Dasha and her friend at the help desk
4. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Dasha, Internal Displaced Person (IDP):
“He understood that something was going only when I said to him: “Grandpa, there is a war here”. He didn’t realize that, he couldn’t hear the explosions. He smokes, so he went to the shop and there were no cigarettes, no groceries, and the shops were closed, and only then he understood.”
5. Med shot, Dasha eating at the train station”
6. Wide shot, Liuba and Nikolai in the metro
7. Wide shot, Liuba and Nikolai walking in the streets of Kharkiv with UNHCR staff
8. Med shot, Liuba and Nikolai in the office
9. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Liuba, IDP:
“I turned right when the Grad missile landed. The house started to collapse; windows were falling down on us. My legs were injured by the shrapnel, and a shock wave hit my eyes. And one eye immediately went blind, the in second my sight started to get fuzzy.”
10. Med shot, Liuba and Nikolai quitting the office
11. SOUNBITE (Russian) Liuba, IDP:
“We don’t what to do. If we go home, we can’t go home because trains aren’t running there and if we get there, there is no gas, the windows are smashed. So we won’t have any heat. How can we spend this winter and what can we do? It’s horrible.”
12. Med shot, Liuba and Nikolai waling in the streets of Kharkiv
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Oldrich Andrysek, UNHCR representative:
“The Ukrainian government, with many competing priorities, presidential elections, now parliamentary elections, the loss of Crimea, cannot focus on the displacement issue. It’s focused itself on regaining control of over non-government-controlled territory and it somehow is not devoting enough resources and attention to helping the IDPs.”
14. Med shot, Dasha sits in front of her school
15. Close up, Liuba and Nikolai in the metro station
16. Wide shot, IDPs in the train station of Kharkiv

Storyline

Kharkiv’s Stalin-era train station has become a hub for the internally displaced in Eastern Ukraine. Inside all the waiting room benches have been arranged in a corner for the exhausted travelers. At a row of desks volunteers, helped by UNHCR officials, offer advice and food.

Dasha is an orphan from near Donetsk. She fled with friends after weeks of shelling. She left her grandparents behind. Her grandfather is deaf and wasn’t sure what was happening.

SOUNDBITE (Russian) Dasha, Internal Displaced Person (IDP):
“He understood that something was going only when I said him: “Grandpa, there is a war here”. He didn’t realize that, he couldn’t hear the explosions. He smokes, so he went to the shop and there were no cigarettes, no groceries, and the shops were closed. And only then he understood.”

Dasha is lucky. Not only is she getting a meal but also a place found by the volunteers in a dormitory in town, and a place in a technical college for the year.

Liuba and Nikolai also fled the shelling, in Snizhnye, went to the Kharkiv station and are now on their way with an UNHCR official to register as IDPs. The conflict left Liuba blind in one eye.

9. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Liuba, IDP:
“I turned right when the Grad missile landed. The house started to collapse; windows were falling down on us. My legs were injured by the shrapnel, and a shock wave hit my eyes. And one eye immediately went blind, the in second my sight started to get fuzzy.”

But later, even as a registered IDP, Liuba learns that an expensive emergency operation on her eye won’t be covered by the health department because she wasn’t registered before the operation. The couple is financially ruined and devastated.

SOUNBITE (Russian) Liuba, IDP:
“We don’t what to do. If we go home, we can’t go home because trains aren’t running there and if we get there, there is no gas, the windows are smashed. So we won’t have any heat. How can we spend this winter and what can we do? It’s horrible.”

Unlike Liuba, Dasha knows what she wants to do, -- study, earn some money, and study 3 years more to become a nurse. And along the way, help her grandparents.

SOUNDBITE (English) Oldrich Andrysek, UNHCR representative:
“The Ukrainian government, with many competing priorities, presidential elections, now parliamentary elections, the loss of Crimea, cannot focus on the displacement issue. It’s focused itself on regaining control of over non-government-controlled territory and it somehow is not devoting enough resources and attention to helping the IDPs.”

Two faces of internal exile, one young and confident, the other older and almost despairing. Two faces among hundreds of thousands, most not getting enough help.