PRZEMYSL, Poland — The wave of refugees flooding through Europe is striking not just for its historic scale and speed but also because half of the 3 million people who have fled the war in Ukraine are children. That means one child has become a refugee nearly every second since the start of the war, said James Elder, a spokesperson for UNICEF. Many have had to say goodbye to their fathers before undertaking difficult and disorienting journeys with mothers and siblings, sometimes waiting more than a dozen hours in the cold before being allowed to cross into safer countries. Parents have agonized over how to explain what was happening. Some kids heard they were going on vacation. Others were told directly: Our homes are not safe, and Dad must stay behind to defend our country.
To understand how some of these children are experiencing the war, The Washington Post asked young refugees at the train station in Przemysl, Poland — near the Ukraine border — to draw what stood out about the past weeks.
Read more at the Washington Post.