After three weeks on the border of Ukraine I am heading home. During my time here moments of joy have been very few and far between as you can imagine. There has been a few rare moments that raise your spirits and make you realise that good will always overcome evil in the end. The joy of seeing children and families reunited as they cross the border, compassion such as that shown by TV journalist Catalina Gomez comforting a lady refugee, guys who drove a bus all the way from the Uk with thousands of soft toys to give to children. The hundreds of volunteers from across the world greeting the refugees with kind words, food and clothing. A man dressed in a bird costume giving sweets and raising a smile from kids, bizarre to see but why not! And a personal message for Putin from a German team bringing food and good humour.
#bekind#zahony#standwithukraine#ukrainewar#ukraine#bekind#volunteers#love#sonyalphapro#sonya1#sonyalpha#photojournalism #
After seeing thousands of refugees fleeing Ukraine I decided to experience a small part of their arduous and emotional journey on a humanitarian train, provided by Slovakian rail company ZSSK, from Block in Ukraine to Kosice in Slovakia. On arrival I wasn’t allowed to photograph due to an unknown security issue and could only shoot on the train. What should have been a small journey for the refugees took a very long time with customs and passport checks and heightened security measures due to an incident near the Ukraine/Slovak border. My very small excursion across the frontier was very fraught, I can’t begin to imagine how tiring and stressful it was for them having travelled from all corners of Ukraine, witnessing horrors and leaving loved ones behind and heading into the unknown.
#refugees#standwithukraine#ukraine#war#gettyimages#humanitarian#sonya1#sonyalphapro#zssk