Joining forces to meet unprecedented need – how Bulgaria is responding to the refugee crisis
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Darina’s journey as a refugee from Kharkiv, Ukraine, to Bulgaria took her 4 days by train and bus. She was heavily pregnant. The Red Cross, which is supported by the WHO Country Office in Bulgaria, helped her during pregnancy and birth, and afterwards.
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“These women, people whom I met by chance, all they wanted to do was help.”
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“I gave birth at Sheinovo Hospital,” remembers Darina. “I wasn’t worried, because the staff were so kind. It was all like a fairy tale."
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To meet the multifaceted needs of Ukrainians like Darina and provide them with coordinated support, the WHO Country Office in Bulgaria has joined forces with the Bulgarian community, the Government, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Bulgarian Red Cross and nongovernmental organizations.
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Twenty-three years ago, Skender Syla, WHO Representative in Bulgaria, was himself a refugee.
“I know how it feels to leave everything behind that you have built over your life course, to leave your relatives, your loved ones. But I remember very well what it means to be offered the hand of support at the most difficult time in your life, in times of greatest uncertainty."
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Since February 2022, more than half a million Ukrainian refugees have crossed the border into Bulgaria, some staying and some passing through. The Red Cross mobilized staff and volunteers to be ready for them.
“We all put in approximately 34 000 hours of volunteer work. Around 5000 volunteers got involved, not just in [the capital] Sofia, but at all the access points for refugees within our country,” explains Nadezhda Todorovska, Deputy General Director of the Bulgarian Red Cross.
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Dancho Penchev, a public health expert in the Bulgarian Ministry of Health, is proud of how Bulgarian institutions rose to the challenge.
“What we showed was the ability to adapt. Our system reacted to the challenges, and there was synergy between the institutions, which is extremely important."
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Angel Kunchev, General National Health Inspector in the Bulgarian Ministry of Health, helped organize the refugee response.
“My biggest task was coordinating all the players. A lot of agencies and ministries are involved. If one refugee agency is involved, that’s great, but there are so many ministries – internal affairs, education, health – not to mention border police, who are our first contact with [the refugees]."
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“People arrive in a really bad condition. Mothers arrive with their own children, and with their family’s and friends’ children too, sometimes 5 to 10 of them. They need daily assistance, the children with schools, the adults with jobs,” says Angel.
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Juliana Kolukina is Head of the Ukrainian Beehive, an education and integration centre.
“When they are in a foreign country, [the refugees] don’t know the language or the laws. They need a helping hand."
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Zahar kisses his mother at the Ukrainian Beehive.
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“Navigating the health system in Bulgaria is the biggest issue. There are lots of disabled people who have come. They came without their papers, because they were left behind in the rubble. There are no digital passports, so they can’t prove their condition,” explains Juliana.
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She adds, “We shouldn’t forget that these people come from war, some of them have lost everything, their homes, family, loved ones. They’ve come emotionally and physically drained, and a lot of them have different health issues.”
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Rima, 24, is an artist and refugee from Odessa who painted the walls of the Ukrainian Beehive. When she first arrived, she panicked at the sound of a garbage truck, thinking it was a bomb.
“You feel powerless. You could be killed any second and there is nothing you can do about it.”
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“We have to hope for the best but prepare for the worse. The situation is very uncertain, unpredictable. We are going towards the winter months, which means we might also have an increased number of COVID-19 cases and influenza, and that's why we are together working on a contingency plan for the coming period to anticipate different scenarios based on the number of people that could arrive in the country,” says Skender.