Siret, Romania – More than 67,000 people from Ukraine have entered Romania since the start of the Russian invasion last week, according to the Romanian government.
Many of them are elderly people or women travelling with their children after the Ukrainian parliament declared martial law, prohibiting men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country.
The refugees have arrived in Romania not only from cities near the border but from all across Ukraine, some travelling for two days to cross the border.
In Siret, northern Romania – the busiest border crossing between the two countries – long queues of cars were seen, with some people spending the night in the fields, waiting to cross the border.
On the Romanian side, hundreds of volunteers from civil society, the Romanian emergency inspectorate and Romanian firefighters provide immediate relief, including food, mobile phone sim cards and free transportation to various cities in Romania.