Some New Mexico residents are helping Ukrainians fleeing the war in their homeland find safety in Poland.
Santa Fe real estate broker Keith Crow told KRQE he was “horrified” by Russia's attack on Ukraine and wanted to do something. He left his home and traveled to Ukraine where he said he has been helping refugees get from the Lviv train station to Poland. Crow and a group of supporters take up to 60 people to Poland per trip and they make three trips a day.
“Once they get to that town, there’s no hotels for them to stay in because there’s so many people,” Crow told KRQE. “There’s no transportation to get them from that train station to the border. So, they were either walking or they’re sitting in the cold for days and days and days to get a bus to the border.”
“I can’t explain the feeling, I can’t explain the satisfaction when you go and you talk to somebody sitting outside in zero weather or under and you ask them if they’d like a ride to Poland,” he said. “They look at you with these eyes like don’t mess with me.”
Crow estimated they’ve helped about 800 people escape to safety.
Crow said it’s getting too dangerous to continue to cross in and out of Ukraine and may end his trips. “I’m also trying to be very cognizant of what’s coming and death is coming. And everybody knows it,” Crow told KRQE.
Dr. Matthew Wilks, associate professor at UNM’s School of Medicine and Chief Medical Officer for the Sandoval Regional Medical Center, is helping out at the Poland-Ukraine border. “I saw the incredible volumes of refugees that were moving and it made me want to see what I could do to help,” Wilks told KRQE. “With my skill set as an emergency room physician and with Team Rubicon’s skill set in international response that I would be able to, through Team Rubicon, make some difference for these people.”
Dr. Wilks will be at the Poland-Ukraine border for the next two weeks though Team Rubicon plans to stay for several months. More than a million Ukrainian refugees have fled to Poland, according to the UN. The agency said more than two million Ukrainians have fled the country in total.