'We will live together or die together': As families flee, one of the less lucky ones returns to Lviv

'The train to Poland stopped repeatedly, at one point for four hours. There was no food or water... but nobody complained. Passengers knew they were the lucky ones.' Picture: Hannah McCarthy

Since the start of the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s western city of Lviv has been a transit hub for over 1m people fleeing the tanks, troops, and bombs.

Every day, thousands arrive at the city before travelling on to Poland.

One Ukrainian man from Kyiv, who arrived with his wife and daughter last week, hoped that border officials would allow him an exemption to the ban on men leaving the country during the war.

His wife had already fled war in her home country of Yemen; she had no family but him and their two-year-old daughter. A Syrian man who had lived in Ukraine for the last 20 years drove the family, who I accompanied, to the Polish border. When I told the driver I was Irish, he smiled and said: “Ireland is very good on Palestine.”

Volunteers at the Polish-Ukrainian border offered fleeing families hot drinks and sandwiches. Picture: Hannah McCarthy

The Syrian man refused to take any payment and gave the number of someone who could collect the family on the Polish side of the border.

Before joining the queue for border control, we stopped for tea and sandwiches provided by volunteers.

“I’m scared,” said the Yemeni woman, as the couple waited for a chance to plead their case for an exemption.

In the queue women were holding babies — prams and carriers left behind at some point on the journey. Others tried to warm themselves at fires lit along the way.

After two hours of waiting, the family were brought to the office of a senior Ukrainian border soldier. She listened sternly to the Ukrainian man as he explained his situation, before saying he could not cross the border.

Along with his wife and daughter, he returned to Lviv. 

“We will all either live together or die together,” his wife said.

A few days later, I left Lviv again, this time by train. After waiting for almost four hours in a crowded under passage in Lviv Station, passengers boarded a train to Poland at 6pm. Children and the elderly took most of the seats while women stood.

Along with a woman, her two teenage daughters, and two older women clutching their small dogs, I sat in the gangway of the train, where temperatures quickly dropped to 0C as night fell.

The train stopped repeatedly along the way; at one point for four hours. There was no food or water on the packed trains but nobody complained. Passengers knew they were the lucky ones.

Women whispered quietly of Sumy and Mariupol; Russian forces had left the Eastern cities devastated and residents without water, electricity, or heat in sub-zero conditions.

As the night progressed, women gave up their seats so that their exhausted children could lie down and attempt to sleep in the brightly lit carriages.

People attempted to sleep in the brightly-lit carriages as the train crept towards Poland, eventually arriving 10 hours late. Picture: Hannah McCarthy

One woman crouched beside her daughter as she tried to sleep on the hard plastic seats. Whenever anyone left the carriage door open (and a cold draught in), the mother would quickly close the door.

“It’s so hard to sleep, you don’t understand!” said her daughter from under a thin blanket. “Ya ponimayu,” (I understand) her mum sighed in Russian.

At 4am, 10 hours late, the train rolled into Przemysl Station in Poland. Polish officials checked passports and volunteers from World Central Kitchen offered boxes of freshly cooked varenyky (Ukrainian dumplings).

With no seats left on the next train for Krakow, I sat down again on the floor in the train hallway.

A woman and her son, Daniel, were quietly crying beside me. Away from the crowds they had joined fleeing, the families who arrive in Poland — “the lucky ones” — were suddenly very alone.